University of Jiroft | Morteza Mokhtari

Research

Title	A Search for Eurasian Sheep Relationships: Genomic Assessment of the Autochthonous Sheep Breeds in Russia and the Persian Plateau
Type	Article
Keywords	local breeds; single nucleotide polymorphisms; migrations; Silk Road
Researchers	Tatiana Deniskova, Ali Esmailizadeh, Arsen Dotsev, Olga Koshkina, Mohammad Ali Farahvashi, Morteza Mokhtari, Mozhdeh Moosanezhad Khabisi, Feng-Hua Lv, Natalia Zinovieva

Abstract

Genomic assessment of local sheep breeds is relevant to the reconstruction of postdomestication migrations and to filling in gaps in the developmental history and contemporary phylogeographic-differentiation patterns in Eurasia. In this study, we aimed to reveal possible genetic relationships between local sheep breeds in Russia and the Persian Highlands (Iran) based on high-density SNP genotypes. All samples (n = 395) from 11 Iranian and 10 Russian sheep breeds were genotyped by using the Ovine Infinium HD BeadChip (Illumina, San Diego, CA, USA). Principal Component Analysis, maximum-likelihood assessment, and Neighbor-Net graph analysis demonstrated a clear differentiation between Russian sheep breeds of European ancestry from the Iranian local cluster and Russian breeds of Asian origin. Admixture analysis revealed a shared ancestral background, which was detected in several Iranian-local and Russian-local fat-tailed coarse-wool sheep breeds. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the pattern of historic admixture, which is present in the genomes of many Eurasian sheep breeds.