title: Romanian wild boars and Mangalitza pigs have a European ancestry and harbour genetic signatures compatible with past population bottlenecks.
abstract: We aimed to analyse the genetic diversity of Romanian wild boars and to compare it with that from other wild boar and pig populations from Europe and Asia. Partial sequencing of the mitochondrial encoded cytochrome b (MT-CYB) gene from 36 Romanian wild boars and 36 domestic pigs (Mangalitza, Bazna and Vietnamese breeds) showed that the diversity of Romanian wild boars and Mangalitza pigs is fairly reduced, and that most of the members of these two populations share a common MT-CYB haplotype. Besides, in strong contrast with the Bazna animals, Romanian wild boars and Mangalitza swine did not carry Asian variants at the MT-CYB locus. The autosomal genotyping of 18 Romanian wild boars with the Illumina Porcine SNP60 BeadChip revealed that their genetic background is fundamentally European, even though signs of a potential Near Eastern ancestry (~25%) were detectable at K = 4 (the most significant number of clusters), but not at higher K-values. Admixture analysis also showed that two wild boars are of a hybrid origin, which could be explained by the mating of feral animals with domestic pigs. Finally, a number of Romanian wild boars displayed long runs of homozygosity, an observation that is consistent with the occurrence of past population bottlenecks and the raise of inbreeding possibly due to overhunting or to the outbreak of infectious diseases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Genetics, Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CSIC-IRTA-UAB-UB), Campus de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, 08193 Spain.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Manunza
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Genetics, Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CSIC-IRTA-UAB-UB), Campus de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, 08193 Spain.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Amills
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Genetics, Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CSIC-IRTA-UAB-UB), Campus de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, 08193 Spain.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Noce
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Genetics, Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CSIC-IRTA-UAB-UB), Campus de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, 08193 Spain.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Cabrera
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Genetics, Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CSIC-IRTA-UAB-UB), Campus de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, 08193 Spain.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zidi
authors.affiliation: Transgenesis Center of Excellence, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Eghbalsaied
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Genetics, Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CSIC-IRTA-UAB-UB), Campus de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, 08193 Spain.
authors.forename: E Carrillo
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: de Albornoz
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Genetics, Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CSIC-IRTA-UAB-UB), Campus de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, 08193 Spain.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Portell
authors.affiliation: Departament de Ciencia Animal i dels Aliments, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, 08193 Spain.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mercadé
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Genetics, Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CSIC-IRTA-UAB-UB), Campus de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, 08193 Spain.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sànchez
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Animal Science and Biotechnologies and Institute of Life Sciences, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Cluj-Napoca 400372, Romania.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Balteanu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005828:Genetics, Population; D016678:Genome; D006579:Heterozygote; D006720:Homozygote; D008928:Mitochondria / Q000235:genetics; D010802:Phylogeny; D012383:Romania; D034421:Sus scrofa / Q000235:genetics*