Genetic diversity and inbreeding situation of Korat and Siamese cats based on microsatellite markers

Abstract

Korat cats and Siamese cats are the famous ancient Thai cat breeds that were originated in Thailand. Currently, there are no genetic studies on Thai native cats that can be used for genetic selection, breeding management and prevent inbreeding in the populations. This study aims to investigate genetic diversity in 2 Thai native cat breeds. Thirty seven Korat cats and 30 Siamese cats were determined by using 30 microsatellite markers. Zn-finger and Amelogenin markers were used as sex determination that was 100 percent accurate. Four markers had one allele that was uninformative in both cat breeds. Nineteen and 22 markers were high to moderate informative markers in Korat and Siamese cats, respectively. Therefore, these sets of markers were suitable for genetic diversity evaluation in Thai cats. Average polymorphic information content (PIC), observed heterozygosity (Ho), expected heterozygosity (He) and inbreeding coefficient (f) from 28 microsatellite markers without sex identified markers were 0.471, 0.413, 0.510 and 0.215 in Korat cats, 0.551, 0.417, 0.587 and 0.261 in Siamese cats, respectively. Results revealed the moderate level of genetic diversity in both Thai native cats that correlated with the inbreeding coefficient. Population structure analysis by the STRUCTURE program was assigned individual cat to the right cat breed that shown uniform and genetically distinct of Korat and Siamese cats. This study was the beginning of genetic diversity study in only two Thai native cat breeds that helps to understand the genetic background within breeds and will be used to investigate the population structure in these cat breeds in the future.