[Studies of random amplified polymorphic DNA(RAPD) of main indigenous sheep breeds in China]

The genetic polymorphism and relationship of 7 indigenous sheep breeds of China and 3 imported sheep breeds were studied using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD). The results indicated that the RAPD was an effective marker for the analysis of genetic relationship among sheep breeds. Among 43 arbitrary primers,35 were polymorphic. The percentage of polymorphic markers was 66.24%,which indicated that the RAPD had higher efficiency of polymorphism detection and sensitivity in studying the genetic variation among sheep breeds. The average index of genetic polymorphism for whole population (Hsp) was 0.9139,which showed that the genetic polymorphism was abundant between sheep populations. The genetic relationship between different indigenous sheep breeds in China was in accord with their localities,the results from archeology and cytogenetics and the genetic relationship between imported sheep breeds was in accord with their breeding history.