Summary: | The three <em>Procapra </em>species, Tibetan gazelle (<em>P. picticaudata</em>), Mongolian gazelle (<em>P. gutturosa</em>) and Przewalski’s gazelle (<em>P. przewalskii</em>) are endemic to Asia. Several intraspecific genetic issues have been studied with species-specific microsatellite loci in these Asian gazelles. However, cross-species microsatellite panels are absent, which inhibits comparative conservation and evolutionary studies of the <em>Procapra</em>. In this study, we isolated 20 cross-species microsatellite loci for <em>Procapra</em> from both related species and the genomic library of <em>P. przewalskii</em>. Fifty-three samples of the three gazelles were used to characterize the markers. Allele numbers ranged from three to 20, with a mean of 7.93 per locus. Observed heterozygosity (<em>H</em><sub>O</sub>) averaged 0.680 and expected heterozygosity (<em>H</em><sub>E</sub>) 0.767. The mean polymorphic information content (PIC) was 0.757 for <em>P. picticaudata</em>, 0.803 for <em>P. gutturosa</em> and 0.590 for <em>P. przewalskii</em>. Nine loci were significantly deviated from Hardy-Weinberg (H-W) equilibrium in the three species. Significant linkage disequilibrium was detected in four pairs of loci in <em>P. przewalskii</em>, five pairs in <em>P. gutturosa</em> and 51 pairs in <em>P. picticaudata</em>. Considering the abundance of published loci and their high success rates of cross-amplification, testing and utilization of loci from related species is efficient for wild species of Bovidae. The cross-species microsatellite loci we developed will facilitate further interspecies genetic studies in <em>Procapra</em>.
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