Genetic analysis of spring and autumn races of Caspian Sea kutum (Rutilus frisii kutum) using microsatellite markers

The kutum (Rutilus frisii kutum) is one of the economically valuable species of CaspianSea. Two different races of this fish exist in the Caspian Sea, the spring race and theautumn race. The aims of this study were to analysis the population genetic structure andgenetic diversity among and between populations of these races based on microsatellitemarkers. For this purpose, 100 samples of adult kutum from two regions of Caspian Sea(Anzali Wetland and Shiroud River) were collected. DNA was extracted and 31 pairmicrosatellite primers were used for PCR and 10 made polymorphic patterns. In thisstudy 191 alleles were observed totally. The maximum numbers of alleles (18) were foundin two loci (Ca1 and Ca3) and the minimum number of alleles (2) was found in MFW1locus. The differences between both races were not statistically significant (P>0.05),neither for average number of alleles per locus nor for observed heterozygosities. Thecalculated Fst and Rst between two races was 0.056 and 0.15 which shows that thegenetic difference was significant (P< 0.01). Spring race in MFW1 locus and autumn racein Lid1 locus were at Hardy-Weinberg equation but not in other loci in both races. Thegenetic distance was 0.407 which indicating the greatest genetic distance between the two studied races. The data generated in this study showed that the spring and autumn races of kutum in two region of southern part of Caspian Sea are two independent populations.