Abstract
The Mangalitsa pig, a swine breed belonging to the protected gene fund of original and primitive animal breeds of the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), has been known to inhabit Romanian territories since the 19th century. The aim of this study was to compare the Mangalitsa breed with several European and Asiatic swine breeds in order to emphasize its uniqueness and to elucidate its origin. For this purpose, we analyzed a 613 bp mitochondrial DNA D-loop fragment and 1140 bp of the cytochrome b gene in a population of Mangalitsa pigs and the polymorphic sites were compared with sequences from GenBank originating from other swine breeds. Taking into account the total of 24 breeds and 5 different Wild Boar populations analyzed, 86 polymorphic sites representing 32 haplotypes were observed, with an average percentage of polymorphic sites of 4.9%. Three Neighbor-Joining phylogenetic trees were constructed based on Kimura 2-parameter distances, using D-loop, cytochrome b and mitochondrial reunited sequences. For the analyzed Mangalitsa population, four distinct haplotypes were identified, including one that was common to other breeds. Our study suggests that the Mangalitsa swine originate from primitive breeds which might be directly derived from the Wild Boar.
Highlights
In the last years, the conservation of animal and plant biodiversity has become a major international goal in environmental sciences
For the animal specimens we have analyzed in our study, at the level of the cytochrome b gene we identified 43 single-nucleotide polymorphisms from which 38 are transitions and 5 are transversions: A→T (14,339, 14,651); T→G (14,746); C→G (14,765) and C→A (14,961)
This is the first study focusing on the phylogenetic relationships of the Mangalitsa breed and other swine breeds from Europe and Asia
Summary
The conservation of animal and plant biodiversity has become a major international goal in environmental sciences. As a result, maintaining the biodiversity of local breeds of domestic animals, especially the ones of economic interest, has become a priority. There is an increasing concern regarding the study and genetic characterization of local populations, the so-called rare animal breeds. A series of studies were performed regarding local horse breeds [1,2,3], bovines [4,5], swine [6,7,8,9,10] and sheep [11,12]. The characterization of the genetic variability of local breeds is, currently, one of the priorities of scientific research in animal genetics, as it is dictated by the re-assessment of practices in livestock breeding as well as by the conservation of genetic resources
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