Genetic characterization of Barbari goats using microsatellite markers.

Genetic variation in Barbari goats, a highly prolific breed distributed widely in the northern part of India, known for better milk and meat quality, was studied as a part of genetic characterization and conservation. The genomic DNA from 50 unrelated Barbari goats were amplified via PCR with a panel of 21 microsatellite markers, and resolved through 6 per cent denaturing polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis followed by silver staining. The number of alleles ranged from 4 to 11, with allele sizes ranging from 88 to 220 bp. The distribution of allele frequencies was between 0.0104 and 0.5208. Polymorphism information content varied from 0.5563 to 0.8348. The population was not in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium for all except two microsatellite loci (ILSTS044 and ILSTS060). The observed heterozygosity ranged from 0.8478 to 1.0000 while the expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.6208 to 0.8509. Based on the results of the present study, there is a good scope for exploiting the genetic variability in the Barbari goats for further improvement of performance.