Genetic Diversity of Daweishan Mini, Yunlong Short Leg and La-bai High Leg Chickens in Yunnan Based on Mitochondrial DNA D-loop Sequences

Daweishan mini, Yunlong short leg and La-bai high leg chickens are three indigenous chicken genetic resources with excellent breed characteristics, which have been found in recent years in Yunnan Province, China. To evaluate their genetic background information, the variation in a total of 257 individuals sampled from the three chicken populations was assessed by using the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) D-loop sequences as genetic marker. The results showed that the haplotype diversity, nucleotide diversity and average genetic distance within the population of Daweishan mini chicken were 0.0830.018, 0.014 670.000 45 and 0.0140.003, respectively. These three indexes for Yunlong short leg chickens were 0.8510.029, 0.013 420.000 80 and 0.0140.003, respectively. And for La-bai high leg chicken were 0.7840.039, 0.011 660.001 55 and 0.0120.003, respectively. Median-joining network displayed that all 257 individuals distributed in maternal lineage A, B, C, D, E, F and G. Daweishan mini chicken contained the all seven lineages, of which the main lineages were lineage D and B. Yunlong short leg chicken included A, B, C, E, F and G lineages, and the lineage E was of the highest percentage in this population. La-bai high leg chicken only contained four lineages, A, B, E and G, which mainly consisted of lineage G. The analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) showed that genetic differentiation indexes (Fst) were respectively 0.120 84, 0.239 46 and 0.263 68 among the three indigenous populations (P0.01), and the percentage of variation among populations and within populations were 80.61% and 19.39% (P0.01), respectively. This study suggests that there are relatively abundant genetic diversity in Daweishan mini, Yunlong short leg and La-bai high leg chickens and they all contain multiple maternal lineage, which supports the views of multiple maternal origin of chicken, but there are significant genetic divergences between them.