Genetic Diversity Analysis Among Populations of Mink from China by Inter-simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR) Markers

Inter-simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR) analysis was applied to assess the genetic diversity within and among five populations of mink from Liaoning Province. A total of 20 primers were screened, five selected primers produced 35 discernible bands, with 30 (85.71%) being polymorphic, indicating high genetic diversity at the species level. The highest genetic diversity was observed in the brown mink population, whereas the lowest diversity was found in the standard-pitchy mink population. Based on genetic distance (1972), a dendrogram was constructed by using UPGMA algorithm, and five populations were divided into two major groups. Group I consisted of only the standard-pitchy mink population, and Group II included other four populations, in Group II, sapphire mink was close to brown mink population. The results of genetic differentiation indicated that the genetic differentiation degree between populations was lower and the genetic variation primarily came from within populations. This paper showed that ISSR technique was a reliable tool that could be used to study genetic diversity in the mink.