The present study was conducted to identify the polymorphism of two major fecundity genes, viz. FecB and FecG, in indigenous sheep of Meghalaya and to assess phylogenetic relationship with 15 breeds of sheep and to estimate the sequence distances between them. Blood samples were collected from 50 adult ewes and PCR-RFLP was performed to detect the polymorphism of these genes. Further digestion of FecB and FecG was done with restriction enzymes AvaII and DdeI, respectively. In the case of FecB gene, two genotypes, viz. AA and AB, were identified where AA genotype yielded one fragment (190 bp) and AB genotype yielded two fragments (160 and 30 bp). The frequencies of A and B alleles were calculated as 0.64 and 0.36 and those of AA and AB genotypes as 0.280 and 0.720 respectively, whereas FecG gene was found to be monomorphic, with only a single genotype designated as AB genotype. Measure of relatedness among Indian and exotic sheep in terms of both the fecundity genes threw light on the evolutionary origin of different sheep breeds.
Keywords: Fecundity genes; PCR–RFLP; Phylogenetic tree; Polymorphism; Sequence distance.
© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.