School of Pharmacy, Chengdu University, Chengdu 610106, China.
College of Animal Science and Technology, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China.
Genes (Basel). 2023 Apr 28;14(5):998. doi: 10.3390/genes14050998.
The Mountainous Meihua chicken is a unique regional germplasm resource from Tongjiang County, Bazhong City, China, but its genetic structure and evolutionary relationships with other native chicken breeds in the Sichuan region remain unclear. Here, we analyzed a total of 469 sequences, including 199 Mountainous Meihua chicken sequences generated in this study, together with 30 sequences representing 13 clades and 240 sequences from seven different Sichuan local chicken breeds downloaded from NCBI. These sequences were further used to analyze genetic diversity, patterns of population differentiation, and phylogenetic relationships between groups. We show that Mountainous Meihua chicken mtDNA sequences have high haplotypic and nucleotide diversity (0.876 and 0.012, respectively) and with a T bias that is suggestive of good breeding potential. Phylogenetic analysis showed that Mountainous Meihua chickens belong to clades A, B, E, and G and have a low affinity to other chicken breeds, with a moderate degree of differentiation. A non-significant Tajima's D indicates that no demographic expansions occurred in the past. Finally, the four maternal lineages identified in Mountainous Meihua chicken showed unique genetic characteristics.
高山梅花鸡是中国巴中市通江县特有的区域性地方种质资源，但它的遗传结构及其与四川地区其他本地鸡种的进化关系尚不清楚。在这里，我们共分析了 469 条序列，包括本研究中生成的 199 条高山梅花鸡序列，以及从 NCBI 下载的代表 13 个分支和 240 条来自七个不同四川本地鸡种的 30 条序列。这些序列进一步用于分析群体间的遗传多样性、种群分化模式和系统发育关系。我们表明，高山梅花鸡的 mtDNA 序列具有较高的单倍型和核苷酸多样性（分别为 0.876 和 0.012），并且存在 T 偏向性，这表明其具有良好的繁殖潜力。系统发育分析表明，高山梅花鸡属于分支 A、B、E 和 G，与其他鸡种的亲缘关系较低，分化程度中等。不显著的 Tajima's D 表明过去没有发生种群扩张。最后，在高山梅花鸡中发现的四个母系谱系显示出独特的遗传特征。
