Study of Genetic variation in Iranian Kurdish horse using microsatellite marker

In this research genetic variation using 6 microsatellite loci (HMS07, HMS03, HMS02, HMS06, ASB02, ASB23) was studied in Iranian Kurdish horse population .Whole blood samples were randomly collected from 52 horses in Kurdistan, Kermanshah, Elam, Western Azerbaijan, Esfahan, Kerman and Hamadan regions. DNA was extracted from blood samples. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used for amplification of 6 microsatellite loci using pairs of standard specific primers. Then, the PCR products assessed with 8% silver-staining acrylamide gel and electrophoresed. All microsatellites loci were polymorphic. The number of alleles observed and expected hetrozygosities were calculated with Shannon Index. The largest and smallest number of alleles were observed in HMS07 locus (10 alleles) and HMS02 (4 alleles) respectively. Our results confirmed the high efficiency of microsatellite markers for assessing population structure in Iranian native horses.