Abstract

Local chicken populations are a major source of food in the rural areas of Algeria. However, their origin has not been well characterized. The objectives of this study were to assess genetic diversity and maternal origin of domestic chicken from five agro-ecological regions of western Algeria: coastal (CT), inland plains (IP), highlands (HL), mountains (MT) and sahara (SH, including Oasis, Req and Erg regions). A set of 88 mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) D-loop sequences including the hypervariable region I (HV1) were analyzed. From the 397 bp D-loop sequence, 20 variable sites that defined 13 haplotypes were identified in Algerian domestic chicken. The haplotype and nucleotide diversity were estimated as 0.597 and 0.003, respectively. Phylogenetic and network analyses indicated the presence of two clades or haplogroups (A and E). Only one clade A haplotype was observed exclusively in the population of mountains, while, Clade E haplotypes were found in almost all Algerian chicken with twelve different haplotypes. These findings suggest that Algerian chickens derived from the most ubiquitous haplogroup which have its root in the Indian subcontinent. Our results provide important information about the origin of the North-West African chicken and the historical dispersal of the first chicken populations into African continent.

摘要

当地鸡群是阿尔及利亚农村地区的主要食物来源。然而，它们的起源尚未得到很好的表征。本研究的目的是评估阿尔及利亚西部五个农业生态区的家鸡的遗传多样性和母体来源：沿海（CT）、内陆平原（IP）、高地（HL）、山区（MT）和撒哈拉（SH） ，包括 Oasis、Req 和 Erg 区域）。分析了一组 88 个线粒体 DNA (mtDNA) D 环序列，包括高变区 I (HV1)。从 397 bp 的 D 环序列中，在阿尔及利亚家鸡中鉴定了 20 个可变位点，定义了 13 种单倍型。单倍型和核苷酸多样性分别估计为 0.597 和 0.003。系统发育和网络分析表明存在两个进化枝或单倍群（A 和 E）。仅在山区种群中仅观察到一个进化枝 A 单倍型，而在几乎所有具有十二种不同单倍型的阿尔及利亚鸡中都发现了进化枝 E 单倍型。这些发现表明，阿尔及利亚鸡来自最普遍的单倍群，其根源于印度次大陆。我们的研究结果提供了有关西北非洲鸡的起源以及第一批鸡群在非洲大陆的历史扩散的重要信息。