Analysis of the genetic diversity of three Egyptian sheep breeds using microsatellite markers

Genetic diversity of Barki, Rahmani and Ossimi Egyptian sheep breeds were assessed for ten microsatellite markers. Average number of alleles, effective number of alleles, polymorphism information content and allelic richness per marker within breeds were 8.0, 4.70, 0.71 and 6.25, respectively. Barki had the highest gene diversity over all considered loci (0.85), followed by Rahmani (0.79) and Ossimi (0.69). Average observed heterozygosity estimates were higher than their corresponding expected ones for all breeds. The average fixation indices (Fit, Fst and Fis) were 0.006, 0.036 and -0.033. Estimates of population subdivision (Fst) were consistently positive for all markers, and its overall value was 0.036, indicating that approximately 4% of genetic diversity can be attributed to genetic variation between breeds. Genetic distances between each pair of the studied breeds were 0.340, 0.369 and 0.442 between Barki and Rahmani, Barki and Ossimi as well as Ossimi and Rahmani, respectively, indicating a medium-high differentiation rate. Results of genetic distance studies might have a direct impact on future genetic conservation studies and breeding programs.