Association between microsatellite regions and reproduction related traits in indigenous chicken ecotypes
The present study was carried out in six indigenous ecotypes of two divisions of Karnataka to assess association of twenty microsatellite regions of thirteen chicken autosomes with age, body weight and egg weight at sexual maturity and Forty week egg production. The general molecular technique protocols were adopted wherever required in PCR, electrophoresis, gel staining and reading. The analysis revealed significant difference (p<0.05) among genotypes combined across ecotypes for nineteen microsatellite loci for body weight at sexual maturity. The analysis revealed significant difference (P<0.05) among genotypes combined across ecotypes for eighteen microsatellite loci for EWSM. The posthoc dunnet's test conducted in one of the microsatellite region ADL0020 genotypes after excluding genotypes with only one bird at 0.05 level of significance revealed that a particular genotype A was significantly different from two of the genotypes C and D, indicating the important role of the corresponding alleles of these genotypes in influencing the Body weight at sexual maturity. The validity of using thus identified markers or alleles need further authentication by research in other populations and further proof by expression studies.