Genetic Diversity of <i>Cyprinus carpio</i> var. <i>communis</i>, <i>Cyprinus carpio</i> var. <i>specularis</i> and <i>Carassius carassius</i> by DNA Based Markers

Abstract

To study genetic relationship of Cyprinus carpio var. communis , Cyprinus carpio var. specularis and Carassius carassius collected from different locations of Kashmir, India, t wo molecular approaches viz. PCR-RFLP of Cyt b gene and r andom amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) were used . Twenty five samples for each of the species collected from different locations of Kashmir, India were used for this study. Of the 12 random primers used 8 generated the polymorphism, while as four out of 7 restriction enzymes used gave polymorphic restriction patterns. The average proportion of polymorphic markers across restriction endonucleases was 74.4%, whereas random primers showed 82.23% polymorphism. The study showed RAPD marker efficiently helped in inter- and intra-species variation of the species. In contrast PCR- RFLP showed bias in detecting intraspecific variations. However, it was found an efficient tool for inter-specific variation between the species under study. The unweighted pair group method with averages (UPGMA) was used to construct two separate dendrogram for RAPD and PCR-RFLP which resulted in two clusters, one containing C. c. communis and C. c. specularis and the other included the C. carassius species. The Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that scale carp ( C. c. communis ) is closest to mirror carp ( C. c. specularis ) than crucian carp ( Crassius carassius ). Mean values of haplotype and nucleotide diversity across the species were 0.0200 and 1.0000±0.0113, respectively. Adding more populations with increased sample size of each species will be imperative to draw more definitive conclusions about species characterization within this region.