Molecular characterization of giant African land snails using polymerase chain reaction - random amplified polymorphic DNA fingerprinting

Abstract

Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers were used to characterize the genetic diversity and relatedness among different populations of Archachatina marginata, a highly relished source of protein in West Africa. Sixteen (16) accessions comprising nine (9) black and seven (7) albino-bodied forms were collected randomly from three different locations in Nigeria and genetic differentiation and morphometric studies conducted. In the genetic analysis, a total of 84 reproducible bands were produced using three (3) oligonucleotide primers. Of these, 79 amplified bands (94.04%) were found to be polymorphic with an average of 28 bands per primer while the remaining 5 were monomorphic loci. Similarly, an analysis of morphological traits resulted in the division of the entire population into 2 major groups based on the geographical distribution that generally reflected expected trends between the genotypes. Among all the morphometric characters, the highest mean value was observed in shell spire (23.38) while the lowest mean value was observed in stripes on the blossom end (1.31). In conclusion, average linkage cluster analysis revealed a high level of genetic diversity and heterogeneity among the snail accessions.