Genetic variation of ten microsatellite loci in Makui sheep of Iran.

The native breeds, because of their natural selection against harsh environment and adaptation to regional conditions are important to resource-poor farmers and pastoralists. The molecular characterization of genetic variation is a fundamental step to manage and conserve indigenous breeds. The aim of this study was to determine the genetic variation of Makui sheep. Totally, 100 sheep (60 ewes, 10 ram and 30 lambs) were used in this study. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) was performed using microsatellite primers BM1329, OarAE101, OarFCB11, OarFCB128, OarFCB129, OarFCB20, OarFCB304, OarFCB5, OarHH35 and OarHH55 in a standard 25 microl reaction. All microsatellite loci were amplified and produced minimum 2 and maximum 14 alleles ranging from 90 to 185 bp in size. The mean number of alleles for each locus was 6.8. Loci OarFCB128 and OarAE101 produced the highest (8.5288) and the lowest (1.0304) effective number of alleles, respectively. The mean expected heterozygosity for all loci was 0.6893 (range 0.0295-0.8837). The highest (2.12) and the lowest (0.07) Shanon Index was observed in OarFCB11 and OarAE101, respectively. Only two (OarFCB5 and OarAE101) out of ten loci were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. The present study was able to demonstrate a reasonable genetic variation and polymorphism across all microsatellite loci studied in the Makui sheep.