Genetic diversity in three Indian goat populations using bovine microsatellites Cauveri D., Sivaselvam S.N., Satyanarayana R., Thangaraju P., Devendran P. Department of Animal Genetics and Breeding, Veterinary College and Research Institute, Namakkal-637 002, Tamil Nadu, India. E-mail: cauveri74@rediffmail.com. Abstract Five cattle microsatellite markers ETH 225, ILSTS 005, ILSTS 011, ILSTS 033 and INRA 035 were selected to study the genetic diversity in Barbari, Kanniadu and Tellicherry goat populations of India. The observed and effective number of alleles in Barbari goats for the loci ETH 225, ILSTS 005, ILSTS 011, ILSTS 033 and INRA 035 were 6 (3.97), 6 (4.42), 8 (5.57), 14 (11.22) and 6 (5.56), respectively. The corresponding values in Kanniadu goats were 9 (6.94), 8 (5.62), 10 (8.1), 7 (5.78) and 9 (8.21) and Tellicherry goats were 8 (5.49), 10 (6.79), 11 (9.52), 6 (5.26) and 7 (4.53), respectively. The observed heterozygosity (HO) ranged from 0.04 to 0.98 with overall Ho (Expected heterozygosity, HE) being 0.69 (0.85). The polymorphic information content (PIC) ranged from 0.465 to 0.904 for all microsatellite loci indicating that these loci showed polymorphism in goats. The genetic diversity estimated as coefficient of gene differentiation (GST) ranged from 0.056 to 0.109, with an average value of 0.083 between the three breeds for the five studied microsatellite loci. Pair-wise breed differentiation and Nei's genetic distance estimates revealed close similarity between Kanniadu and Tellicherry goats. On the basis of phylogenetic tree constructed, Kanniadu and Tellicherry goat populations were grouped together in one cluster and Barbari in the other. The FIS values were negative suggesting of no inbreeding and the animals were outbred. Top Key words Genetic distance, Goats, Heterozygosity, Microsatellites. Top |