Genetic relationship of Korean cattle (Hanwoo) based on nucleotide variation of mitochondrial D-loop region

Abstract

This study analyzed the D-loop region of 28 Korean cattle (Bos taurus) from 7 different localities to examine the genetic diversity of Korean cattle populations. Approximately 1.6 kb of D-loop region sequences was determined and nucleotide variations were compared using the sequences of the 28 Korean cattle and the published sequences of 18 Japanese, 10 European, 6 African and 6 Indian cattle. Dendrograms indicated that the Korean cattle were more closely related to the European than Japanese cattle. The Indian cattle showed the furthest genetic relation to the Korean cattle. This paper discussed the genetic relationship of Korean domestic cattle compared with European, African, Indian and Japanese cattle based on the sequence variations of the mitochondrial DNA D-loop region.