Genetic diversity of Tibetan goats of Plateau type using microsatellite markers

The 10 microsatellite markers (XBM7, XBM11, XBM16, XBM19, XBM24, XBM31, XBM84, TGLA53, SRCRSP-10 and ILS005) were selected to investigate the genetic diversity of Tibetan goat of Plateau type (NM, n=108), and the other 5 goat populations, i.e., Tibetan goat of Valley type (TG, n=36), Baiyu black goat (BY, n=36), Jianchang black goat (JC, n=36), Meigu goat (MG, n=36) and Xinjiang goat (Xi, n=32) were served as control. The mean polymorphism information content, heterozygosity and effective allele number of these 6 populations were 0.660/0.777/4.476, 0.716/0.797/4.9416, 0.631/0.673/3.061, 0.649/0.680/3.125, 0.629/0.680/3.125 and 0.561/0.793/4.840 respectively. The allele frequencies of Tibetan goat of plateau type in 10 microsatellite loci were greatly different with other 5 goat populations. The 6 goat populations were grouped into three distinct clusters: the Tibetan goat cluster (NM goat and TG goat), Sichuan goat cluster (JC goat, MG goat and BY goat), and Xinjiang goat cluster (Xi goat). These 3 distinct clusters were finally clustered together. The genetic differences among populations were in accordance with their geographical and historical origins.