Genetic Diversity Study Of A Semi-captive Saiga Antelope (Saiga Tatarica) Group

Saiga antelope (Saiga tataricd) is the representative ungulate of the Central Asia steppe, and is also a traditional medicinal animal of China. China was once one of the main distribution of Saiga antelope (S. tatarica), but the wild species have become extinct in the middle of the last century. China has launched a reintroduction project from America and Germany since1987and established a breeding base in Gansu Endangered Animal Research Center. Genetic management is particularly important in view of the founder of Saiga antelope (S. tatarica) population is too small.In this study, three kinds of genetic markers were used, such were rnicrosatellite, mitochondrial and major histocompatibility complex, all of them were used to carry out the study of the genetic diversity, and analyze the genetic evolution of Wuwei Saiga antelope (S. tatarica) captive population based on the function genes in the major histocompatibility complex. Nine microsatellite loci from bovidae were used to amplify39Saiga antelope (S. tatarica) umbilical cord tissue DNA; primer was designed according to the published mitochondrial DNA sequence,450bp mitochondrial D-Loop control region fragment was finally obtained; DRB primers were used to amplify31individuals and sequencing. The results showed that:1) Microsatellite molecular markers showed that, allele from9microsatellite loci were arranged from2-6, the average number is4. observed heterozygosity value was between0.28and0.83. and expected heterozygosity value was between0.27and0.71. the average number was0.45and0.49. respectively, polymorphic information content is0.43, the average value of coefficient of inbreeding within population is0.09;2) Mitochondrial molecular marker shows that, only two haplotypes were found in39individuals and the haplotype diversity was0.39,13polymorphic loci were detected in450bp length DNA sequence, all variation patterns were transformation;3) Major histocompatibility complex molecular markers shows that,6alleles were identified in DRB loci, and detected14variable sites, the average value of genetic distance among the6alleles was0.038, the mean difference value among the alleles was3.5bp, the haplotype and nucleotide diversity was0.669and0.012, respectively, gene frequency in6haplotypes were between0.032and0.52, the average number of nucleotide differences was only2.049.4) Phylogenetic analysis of the second exon of Major histocompatibility complex showed that,172bp DRB fragment in totally31individuals,10amino acid variation sites were detected, in the PBR region,4variable sites was detected in a total of11sites, accounting for36.4%of the PBR sites, in the non-PBR region,6variable sites was detected in a total of42sites, accounting for14.3%of the non-PBR sites, the mean value of evolutionary rate in all polymorphic loci is4.8, the non-polymorphic loci were less than1. the mean ratio of non-synonymous substitution rate and the synonymous substitution rate is3.38.