Analysis of genetic diversity and distances in Asian cattle breeds using microsatellite markers

Abstract This study de ned the genetic diversity of ve breeds of cattle in Asia by analyzing6 microsatellite markers in 270 animals. Based on expected mean heterozygosity, thelowest genetic diversity was exhibited in Japanese black cattle (HE=0.5849), and thehighest in Chinese yellow cattle (HE=0.8073). Average proportion of genetic variationdue to interpopulation subdivision among these ve cattle breeds varied between 11.7and 12.5%. The genetic distances were roughly divided into three groups: Japaneseblack cattle, Holstein, and the three remaining breeds. This clustering agrees with theorigin and geographical distributions of these ve cattle breeds.Keywords: Cattle breeds, genetic diversity, microsatellite marker. 1. Introduction Most of the cattle in Asia are classi ed as Bostaurus and characterized by lack of humps.Earlier remains of domestic bovine from at least 8000 years ago were found in AnatoliaHowever, the earliest domestic cattle found in Asia dated to 5000 years ago, several thou-sand years after domestication by primary aurochs in west Asia (Payne and Hodges, 1997).With the introduction of rice cultivation, cattle migrated from north China via the Koreanpeninsula to Japan around the second century A.D. (Mannen et al., 1998). Many indigenousbreeds are facing extinction and genetic variability in small population because Europeanbreeds were often used as sire lines for crossbreeding with Chinese indigenous cattle breeds.The existence of genetic polymorphism or diversity in a population is the basis of geneticimprovement by selection and needs to be accurately estimated (Lee et al., 2007; Lee et al.,