Maternal genetic diversity and population structure of four Chinese donkey breeds

To be helpful for the conservation, utilization, and exploitation of the genetic resources of the indigenous Chinese donkeys, and analyze genetic diversity and provide some implications for their maternal origins, we first detailedly investigated the nearly whole mitochondrial Cytochrome b gene (cytb) of four Chinese donkey breeds' populations. In this study, abundant mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) diversity and two distinct mitochondrial matrenal lineages, lineage Somali and lineage Nubian, were revealed in the four Chinese domestic donkey breed populations we analyzed. A co-existence model of two lineages as same as the previous studies was found in the four analyzed donkey breeds. Moreover, there was no obvious correspondence between the geographic regions, lineage structure, and maternal origins among all four Chinese donkey breeds. The pattern of genetic variation in analyzed donkey cytb gene indicated that the two lineages had not undergone population expansion events.