Abstract
Domestic donkey plays a key role as a draft animal in rural economy of Pakistan where its population is increasing every year. The complete mtDNA control region of forty randomly sampled donkeys was PCR- amplified and sequenced bi-directionally using specific primers. Distinct mtDNA haplotypes obtained in the current study (KY446001-KY446011) were subjected to haplotype (h) and nucleotide diversity (π) measures using DnaS as well as to phylogenetic, Network, and AMOVA analyses. There were a total 27 polymorphic sites present within 11 unique mtDNA haplotypes from the studied 40 animals from different regions. Neighbor-joining network and median-joining network both illustrated the splitting of all these haplotypes into two well-defined Nubian and Somali lineages, confirming African maternal origin of Pakistani domestic donkey. Diversity parameters h (0.967± 0.037) and π (0.02917± 0.00307) were found to reveal high levels of genetic diversity in Pakistani donkeys. AMOVA demonstrated only 1% of genetic differences between two mtDNA maternal lineages, pointing to lack of population substructure in Pakistani donkeys as is the case with worldwide domestic donkey population. Pakistani donkeys have African maternal origin and high levels of mtDNA diversity. High genetic diversity may be due to non-selective breeding and heteroplasmy. We herein provide the first report on mtDNA diversity of control region in Pakistani domestic donkey.
Highlights
Donkey has been domesticated about 5000 to 6000 years ago when human stared the use of wild animals for transportation, food and domestic uses (Rossel et al, 2008)
We mapped 11 haplotypes resulting from 27 polymorphic sites after analyzing 399 bp of control region readable in all sequences after alignment (Table 1)
We found substitution and transversion mutations that show high rate of mutation in donkey population
Summary
Donkey has been domesticated about 5000 to 6000 years ago when human stared the use of wild animals for transportation, food and domestic uses (Rossel et al, 2008). The domestication of donkey has been reported from two different linage origins; Equus africinus africinus and Equus africinus. The use of donkey as a domestic animal in Indian subcontinent evident in Harappa, ancient city contains the ruins of a Bronze Age fortified city (2600–1900 BC), which was part of the Indus Valley Civilization, presently in Punjab and Sindh provinces of Pakistan (Porter et al, 2016). Donkey is transport source as well as its bypruducts as medicinal and cosmetic uses in Pakistan and meat source in neighbor countries i.e. China. In west border area two breeds are known named as Sperki and Shingari in local language
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