Vol. 12, Special Issue 9 (2023)

The study was undertaken to understand the genetic variation of native sheep prevalent in Nagarjuna Sagar area of Telangana were genotyped using 10 microsatellite markers. A total number of 82 alleles were amplified in the present study across the 10 microsatellite loci. The number of alleles at each locus varied from a minimum of six (OarAE129, OarCP38) to a maximum of 11 (MAF 214) with a mean of 8.2 alleles. The mean number of effective alleles was

7.221. The mean observed and expected heterozygosity was 0.104 and 0.855, respectively. The overall mean inbreeding coefficient was 0.878. The FIS values ranged from 0.832 (OarCP34) to 0.941 (BM8125). The inbreeding estimates obtained in this study were all the positive indicating the high deficiency of heterozygotes. All the ten microsatellite loci (100%) were found to be highly polymorphic and the PIC values ranged from 0.762 (OarAE129) to 0.890 (MAF214). The mean PIC value for all the ten loci was found to be 0.836. The chi-square test revealed that all the ten loci were showing significant deviation from Hardy-Weinberg study contribute to the knowledge of genetic structure of this native sheep. The results revealed high genetic variation within the breed.