Genetic variations between African and German sheep breeds, and description of a new variant of vitamin D-binding protein

Genetic variations in blood proteins of 1187 individuals from four African and five German sheep breeds were investigated and relationships among them determined.Atotal of 20 variants including a newvitamin D-binding protein allele were detected at the albumin (ALB), carbonic anhydrase (CA II), vitamin D-binding protein (GC), haemoglobin (HBB) and transferrin (TF) loci. Group allele specificity was observed with GCC identified only in the African breeds and CA IIM, GCA, TFG, and TFQ in the German breeds. Significant differences in frequency were detected at the ALB and TF loci for some of the breeds. Mean heterozygosity values were similar for all African and three of the German breeds and generally ranged from 0.185–0.452. Estimates of total genetic diversity (HT) and mean genetic diversity within population (HS) were similar for all breeds. A high degree of interpopulation subdivision was indicated by a larger GST (proportion of interpopulation genetic differentiation) value of 0.251 for all breeds than for African (0.038) or German (0.175) breeds. Greatest DA (Nei’s distance) genetic distance occurred between German Grey Heath sheep and West African Dwarf sheep (0.284) while the lowest distance involved the Mbororo and the West African Dwarf pair (0.016). A large divergence between the African and German breeds was indicated by a UPGMA (unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean) dendrogram of relationships that separated the breeds into two main clusters, an African and a German cluster. Further clustering of breeds within the main clusters was clearly influenced by breed development and location. These results suggest that a larger genetic divergence exist between West/Central African hairy thin-tailed sheep and European thin-tailed fleece sheep than current historical and archeological data seem to suggest. The results also suggest contribution from different ancestors to the development of African and German sheep breeds. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.