Estimating the frequency of Asian cytochrome B haplotypes in standard European and local Spanish pig breeds.
Mitochondrial DNA has been widely used to perform phylogenetic studies in different animal species. In pigs, genetic variability at the cytochrome B gene and the D-loop region has been used as a tool to dissect the genetic relationships between different breeds and populations. In this work, we analysed four SNP at the cytochrome B gene to infer the Asian (A1 and A2 haplotypes) or European (E1 and E2 haplotypes) origins of several European standard and local pig breeds. We found a mixture of Asian and European haplotypes in the Canarian Black pig (E1, A1 and A2), German Piétrain (E1, A1 and A2), Belgian Piétrain (E1, A1), Large White (E1 and A1) and Landrace (E1 and A1) breeds. In contrast, the Iberian (Guadyerbas, Ervideira, Caldeira, Campanario, Puebla and Torbiscal strains) and the Majorcan Black pig breeds only displayed the E1 haplotype. Our results show that the introgression of Chinese pig breeds affected most of the major European standard breeds, which harbour Asian haplotypes at diverse frequencies (15-56%). In contrast, isolated local Spanish breeds, such as the Iberian and Majorcan Black pig, only display European cytochrome B haplotypes, a feature that evidences that they were not crossed with other Chinese or European commercial populations. These findings illustrate how geographical confinement spared several local Spanish breeds from the extensive introgression event that took place during the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe.
Clop
Alex
A
Departament de Ciència Animal i dels Aliments, Facultat de Veterinària, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra 08193, Spain.
Amills
Marcel
M
Noguera
José Luís
JL
Fernández
Ana
A
Capote
Juan
J
Ramón
Maria Misericòrdia
MM
Kelly
Lucía
L
Kijas
James M H
JM
Andersson
Leif
L
Sànchez
Armand
A
D000818:Animals; D045303:Cytochromes b / Q000235:genetics*; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial; D005787:Gene Frequency; D006239:Haplotypes; D008928:Mitochondria / Q000235:genetics; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D013552:Swine / Q000235:genetics*
D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial; D045303:Cytochromes b