Mitochondrial DNA diversity in Indian sheep

The present study investigates the mitochondrial DNA diversity in 154 Indian sheep from 19 breeds/populations from 3 different agroecological regions. A total of 37 haplotypes could be distinguished in Indian sheep. Overall values of nucleotide and haplotype diversities were 0.0017 and 0.60 respectively. The breeds of southern peninsular region showed high haplotype diversity (0.74). Two maternal lineages (haplogroups A and B) could be identified with haplogroup A predominating over haplogroup B. Network profile revealed a star burst phylogeny for haplogroup A. Signatures of recent population expansion were evident from unimodal patterns of mismatch distribution as well as significant negative values of Tajima's D and Fu's Fs tests. Apart from the maternal lineages A and B, no other known lineage was detected.