Abstract
The present study was aimed at genetic characterization and diversity analysis of newly identified swamp buffalo population ‘Bhangor’ using the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recommended bovine microsatellite markers. Genomic DNA was isolated from blood samples of 76 unrelated animals. Of the 24 markers, 15 markers (CSSM33, BM1818, CSRM60, HEL13, ILSTS019, ILSTS025, ILSTS028, ILSTS029, ILSTS030, ILSTS033, ILSTS036, ILSTS056, ILSTS058, ILSTS061, ILSTS089 and ETH003) were found to be highly polymorphic in the population. A total of 114 alleles were secured, with an overall average of 7.60 alleles per locus. The number of alleles ranged from 3 (CSRM60 and ILSTS025) to 12 (ILSTS056 and ILSTS061). The mean effective number of alleles across all polymorphic loci was found to be 3.76. The overall mean expected heterozygosity and unbiased expected heterozygosity values were 0.67 and 0.68, ranging from 0.067 (ILSTS025) to 0.85 (ILSTS058) and 0.068 (ILSTS025) to 0.86 (ILSTS058), respectively. The average PIC estimate across all polymorphic loci was 0.63. The population was found to be in optimum diversity based on polymorphic microsatellite markers. This is the newly characterized buffalo population from north-east India.