Statistical analysis and genetic diversity of three dog breeds using simple sequence repeats

There are more than 400 pure dog breeds developed through intentional artificial selection and purebred breeding. Purebred animals have higher risk of inbreeding depression and hereditary diseases. We investigated the genetic diversity and structure of three dog breeds in South Korea by using 12 microsatellite loci for one Korean native dog breed, Sapsaree, and two foreign breeds, German shepherd and Belgian Malinois. The mean allele number of nine loci across all dog breeds was 4.833, and the number of alleles per locus ranged from 2 to 8. The mean of expected and observed heterozygosity were 0.415 and 0.577, respectively. Sapsaree, Korean native dog, had higher level of genetic diversity than the foreign German shepherd and Belgian Malinois. The highest mean value of polymorphism information content was found in Sapsaree (0.480), followed by Belgian Malinois (0.373) and German shepherd (0.355). Pairwise genetic differentiation was estimated using fixation index F ST. Sapsaree and German shepherd (F ST = 0.2536) and Sapsaree and Belgian Malinois (F ST = 0.2522) had very great genetic differentiation, while moderate level of genetic differentiation was observed between German shepherd and Belgian Malinois (F ST = 0.1003). These genetic information and structure of the three dog breeds will be effective in conservation and preservation of the genetic diversity of the three dog breeds.