Research article

Microsatellite markers of water buffalo, Bubalus bubalis - development, characterisation and linkage disequilibrium studies

Muniyandi Nagarajan , Niraj Kumar , Gopala Nishanth , Ramachandran Haribaskar , Karthikeyani Paranthaman , Jalaj Gupta , Manish Mishra , R Vaidhegi , Shantanu Kumar , Amresh K Ranjan and Satish Kumar

Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Uppal Road, Hyderabad-500007, India

author email corresponding author email

BMC Genetics 2009, 10:68doi:10.1186/1471-2156-10-68

Published:	21 October 2009

Abstract

Background

Microsatellite markers are highly polymorphic and widely used in genome mapping and population genetic studies in livestock species. River buffalo, Bubalus bubalis is an economically important livestock species, though only a limited number of microsatellite markers have been reported thus far in this species.

Results

In the present study, using two different approaches 571 microsatellite markers have been characterized for water buffalo. Of the 571 microsatellite markers, 498 were polymorphic with average heterozygosity of 0.51 on a panel of 24 unrelated buffalo. Fisher exact test was used to detect LD between the marker pairs. Among the 137550 pairs of marker combination, 14.58% pairs showed significant LD (P < 0.05). Further to check the suitability of these microsatellite markers to map these on a radiation hybrid map of buffalo genome, the markers were tested on Chinese hamster genomic DNA for amplification. Only seven of these markers showed amplification in Chinese hamster, and thus 564, of these can be added to the radiation hybrid map of this species.

Conclusion

The high conservation of cattle microsatellite loci in water buffalo promises the usefulness of the cattle microsatellites markers on buffalo. The polymorphic markers characterised in this study will contribute to genetic linkage and radiation hybrid mapping of water buffalo and population genetic studies.