Evaluation of genetic diversity and relationships among eight Russian and Ukrainian cattle breeds based on microsatellite markers

Abstract

In recent years, special attention has been paid both to the preservation of the genetic diversity of cattle breeds in the Russian Federation and Ukraine, and to the evaluation of the breeds’ ‘purity’, especially in relation to undesirable recessive lethal mutations. The main goal of our work was to assess the genetic diversity of the main cattle breeds bred in the Russian Federation and Ukraine using microsatellite DNA loci, as well as to evaluate the phylogenetic relationships between them. An analysis of molecular genetic diversity was carried out in different cattle breeds represented both in the Russian Federation and Ukraine. A total of 752 individuals, which belonged to eight breeds of the dairy and meat productivity directions were studied. Ten microsatellite loci recommended by ISAG-FAO and arranged in one multiplex panel (ETH3, INRA023, TGLA227, BM1818, TGLA122, SPS115, TGLA53, BM2113, BM1824 and ETH10) were used as DNA markers. Some alleles were found with a very high frequency in most of the studied cattle breeds and, thus, they can be considered as species-specific for the species Bos taurus as a whole. These were alleles 262 and 266 bp (for BM1818), 180 and 188 bp (for BM1824), 125-127 and 133-135 bp (for BM2113), 217-219 bp (for ETH10), 248 and 252 bp (for SPS115). All breeds included in the analysis are characterized by a very high genetic uniqueness based on microsatellite loci; the accuracy of assigning the studied individuals to their own population varied within the range of 95–100%. In general, all breeds studied are grouped into two clusters. Cluster No. 1 contains genetic groups originating from Holstein, and cluster No. 2 contains the remaining breeds. Three breeds (Ayrshire, Simmental and Russian Red Pied) are characterized by very low estimates of the effective population size (less than 50 animals), which may lead to the loss of their genetic uniqueness in the future. In the study of eight dairy and meat cattle breeds that are bred in the Russian Federation and Ukraine, we found that the breeds differ significantly in the genetic polymorphism indicators over ten MS-DNA loci used. Moreover, the level of allelic diversity for the studied breeds was determined, primarily, by the presence and number of rare (and/or “private”) alleles. This may be due to the manifestation of different mechanisms of the formation and maintenance of genetic polymorphism in breeds, based on productivity direction.