Genetic Passportization and Barcoding օf Armenian Mouflonօ Using ISSR Markers

Abstract

TIn the current period of agricultural management, when the task is to obtain new breeds of farm animals following modern socio-economic, regional, and natural-geographical requirements and to improve the existing ones, the problem of using the rich gene pool of wild relatives very often arises. It should be noted, however, that the genetic potential of the Armenian Mouflon was not used during the creation of agricultural animals, particularly sheep in Armenia. This was due to several biological barriers, which are currently surmountable with the use of modern biotechnological methods, especially genomic selection. To resolve the issue, we carried out the genetic passportization and barcoding of the Armenian Mouflon kept in the Yerevan Zoo according to ISSR-PCR markers. Five of the 11 ISSR primers used during molecular-genetic research had high activity: (GA)9C, (CA)9G, (CTC)6G, (GTG)6C, and (ACC)6G. A total of 63 or 71.6 % of the 88 ISSR-PCR amplicons were polymorphic. The lowest value of polymorphic DNA fragments was recorded for (ACC)6G (59.1 %) and the highest for (GTG)6C (83.3%) primers. The number of rare alleles, which indicates the originality and homogeneity of the given population, in the experimental group were: (CTC)6G and (GTG)6C. From the analysis of the material obtained during the experimental research, it was possible to decode the genetic formula and barcode of the Armenian Mouflon, which can be used as a test to clarify the identification, origin, and evolution of the species and conduct molecular selection in the breeding processes.