Genes, Vol. 15, Pages 398: Insights for the Captive Management of South China Tigers Based on a Large-Scale Genetic Survey

Genes, Vol. 15, Pages 398: Insights for the Captive Management of South China Tigers Based on a Large-Scale Genetic Survey Genes doi: 10.3390/genes15040398 Authors: Wenping Zhang Kaixiong Lin Wenyuan Fu Junjin Xie Xueyang Fan Mingchun Zhang Hongxing Luo Yuzhong Yin Qiang Guo He Huang Tengteng Chen Xipan Lin Yaohua Yuan Cheng Huang Shizhang Du There is an urgent need to find a way to improve the genetic diversity of captive South China tiger (SCT, Panthera tigris amoyensis), the most critically endangered taxon of living tigers, facing inbreeding depression. The genomes showed that 13 hybrid SCTs from Meihuashan were divided into two groups; one group included three individuals who had a closer relationship with pureblood SCTs than another group. The three individuals shared more that 40% of their genome with pureblood SCTs and might be potential individuals for genetic rescuing in SCTs. A large-scale genetic survey based on 319 pureblood SCTs showed that the mean microsatellite inbreeding coefficient of pureblood SCTs decreased significantly from 0.1789 to 0.0600 (p = 0.000009) and the ratio of heterozygous loci increased significantly from 38.5% to 43.2% (p = 0.02) after one individual of the Chongqing line joined the Suzhou line and began to breed in the mid-1980s, which is a reason why the current SCTs keep a moderate level of microsatellite heterozygosity and nucleotide diversity. However, it is important to establish a back-up populati...
Source: Genes - Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Authors: Tags: Article Source Type: research