PCR–Based randomly amplified polymorphic DNA used for molecular characterization and detection of genetic diversity in sheep breeds

Abstract

Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) was used to analyze blood samples of Munjal and Nali sheep breeds. In the present study, RAPD-PCR method was used to amplify DNA samples using forty arbitrary oligonucleotide primers. Only seven primers found informative. From the 7 random primers, a total of 91 bands were amplified between breeds and 71 of these (78.02%) were found to be polymorphic. In Munjal, overall percentage polymorphism of 71.73 was observed, while in Nali it was 84.44. Genetic distance between breeds was 0.95. MAPD values of 22.85 and 29.46 were observed in Munjal and Nali breeds, respectively, while MAPD 46.88 was observed between breeds. One primer (OPV-09) in Munjal and one primer (OPV-09) in Nali were found to be specific for these breeds. The scientific data presented in the study suggests that RAPD-PCR could be used as a valuable tool in the molecular characterization and genetic diversity study.