GENETIC DIVERSITY AMONG TWO COMMON POPULATIONS OF CANIS LUPUS FAMILIARIS IN EGYPT BY USING MITOCHONDRIAL DNA HVR1 SEQUENCE

The current study aimed to investigate the variation of mtDNA hypervariable region 1 (HVR1) among Egyptian Baladi and German shepherd dogs in Egypt with respect to their phylogenetic origin. Blood samples were obtained from two dog breeds; Egyptian Baladi (n = 46) and German shepherd (n = 42) and used for genomic DNA extraction and PCR amplification of the mtDNA HVR1 using primers H15360 and L16106. The determined haplotypes were aligned to the sequences of the first published dog mitochondrial genome (Accession No. U96639). We identified 22 different haplotypes from 34 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) including 2 insertion-deletion polymorphisms among the Egyptian Baladi dogs and 12 haplotypes from 22 SNPs among the German shepherd dogs. Four haplogroups (A, B, C, and D) were identified in the two breeds, their distribution includes 78% of Egyptian Baladi dogs and 76% of German shepherd dogs, respectively were located in the haplogroup A. While 19 % of the German shepherd and 15% of Egyptian Baladi dogs were found in the haplogroup B. 5% of the detected haplotypes of the two breeds were belonged to haplogroup C. 2% of the detected haplotypes of Egyptian Baladi dogs were classified to a haplogroup D. High haplotype and nucleotide diversities were found in the two breeds indicating a lack of genetic differentiation and a recent population growth. The later was confirmed in the Egyptian dogs with the negative values of the neutrality tests and their clustering in the same clade within the phylogenetic tree.