Genetic relationship among four indian breeds of sheep using rapd-pcr

The study was' carried out in four Indian sheep breeds namely, Marwari, Mandya, Madras Red and Muzaffarnagari maintained at different organised herds of the country. A total of six oligonucleotide primers were subjected to perform random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) fingerprinting to estimate genetic relationship (relatedness) among different breeds of sheep. All the six primers showed polymorphism in producing bands. The average number of bands in different breeds ranged from 6 to 15 with size of 0.3 to 1.9 kb. Out of six primers, OPM-2 and ILO-17 produced comparatively large number of bands in agarose gel. The intrabreed relatedness in terms of band sharing ranged from 0.66 to 1.00, the highest being in Marwari, whereas, lowest in Muzaffarnagari breed. The interbreed relatedness in terms of mean average percentage difference (MAPD) was highest (9.44±1.66) between Marwari and Muzaffarnagari breed while lowestvalue (4.90±1.54) was found between Mandya and Mujaffarnagari. It may be concluded that the Mandya breed is closest to Marwari while Marwari breed is too distant from Muzaffarnagari breed.