Vol. 11, Special Issue 6 (2022)

Author(s):
Joycee Jogi and Kajal Kumar Jadav

Abstract:
This paper describes the method to identify domestic herbivore species as well as Chital using sequence polymorphism of cytochrome b gene fragment of mitochondrial genome. Chital is prone to poaching for its meat, skin and antlers. In absence of authentic techniques for species identification, it becomes impossible to prosecute the wildlife crimes in the court of law. The present work was planned to study the species specific PCR-RFLP patterns for meat identification of chital and its differentiation from the meat of domestic herbivores of Central India. Meat samples of chital and cattle were collected from the carcasses during necropsy and meat of other domestic herbivores was collected from the local slaughter houses. Extracted DNA from each sample was used in the amplification of fragment of Cytochrome b gene using universal primers and then sequencing was done to select a specific restriction enzyme to distinguish between herbivore species. All the species produced characteristic PCR-RFLP profile with TaqI. The present study could efficiently differentiate chital and closely related domestic herbivore species and can be considered simple, more accurate, easy-to-use specific protocol for identification of species from biological samples.