title: Large-scale mitochondrial DNA analysis of the domestic goat reveals six haplogroups with high diversity.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  From the beginning of domestication, the transportation of domestic animals resulted in genetic and demographic processes that explain their present distribution and genetic structure. Thus studying the present genetic diversity helps to better understand the history of domestic species.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The genetic diversity of domestic goats has been characterized with 2430 individuals from all over the old world, including 946 new individuals from regions poorly studied until now (mainly the Fertile Crescent). These individuals represented 1540 haplotypes for the HVI segment of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region. This large-scale study allowed the establishment of a clear nomenclature of the goat maternal haplogroups. Only five of the six previously defined groups of haplotypes were divergent enough to be considered as different haplogroups. Moreover a new mitochondrial group has been localized around the Fertile Crescent. All groups showed very high haplotype diversity. Most of this diversity was distributed among groups and within geographic regions. The weak geographic structure may result from the worldwide distribution of the dominant A haplogroup (more than 90% of the individuals). The large-scale distribution of other haplogroups (except one), may be related to human migration. The recent fragmentation of local goat populations into discrete breeds is not detectable with mitochondrial markers. The estimation of demographic parameters from mismatch analyses showed that all groups had a recent demographic expansion corresponding roughly to the period when domestication took place. But even with a large data set it remains difficult to give relative dates of expansion for different haplogroups because of large confidence intervals.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We propose standard criteria for the definition of the different haplogroups based on the result of mismatch analysis and on the use of sequences of reference. Such a method could be also applied for clarifying the nomenclature of mitochondrial haplogroups in other domestic species.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, CNRS-UMR 5553, Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France.
authors.forename: Saeid
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Naderi
authors.forename: Hamid-Reza
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Rezaei
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Taberlet
authors.forename: Stéphanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zundel
authors.forename: Seyed-Abbas
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Rafat
authors.forename: Hamid-Reza
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Naghash
authors.forename: Mohamed A A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: el-Barody
authors.forename: Okan
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Ertugrul
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pompanon
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005828:Genetics, Population; D006041:Goats / Q000235:genetics*; D006239:Haplotypes; D008928:Mitochondria; D008954:Models, Biological; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010802:Phylogeny; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D013045:Species Specificity
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial