ABSTRACT. Yunnan is situated in the Southwest China and encompasses regions having high biodiversity, including habitats for several ancestral species of domestic animals such as chicken. Domestic chickens in Yunnan were kept by peoples of varied ethnic and economic backgrounds living in highly varied geographic environments. To identify the genetic background of Yunnan domestic chickens and their relationships with Red Junglefowl, we applied 28 widely used microsatellite DNA markers to genotype 340 birds from 7 chicken breeds and Red Junglefowl indigenous to Yunnan. Among a total of 342 alleles identified, 121 (35.4%) were breed specific, with Red Junglefowl harboring most microsatellite alleles (23). High levels of heterozygosity were observed within populations indicated by a mean unbiased H E value of 0.663, which was higher than the reported for most populations elsewhere. The F IS value of domestic populations ranged from -0.098-0.005, indicating a lack of inbreeding among these populations. A high proportion of significant departures (89) from the 224 HWE tests for each locus in each population reflected an excess of heterozygosity and population substructure. Individual assignment tests, high F ST values (0.1757-0.3015), and Nei's D A genetic distances (0.4232-0.6950) indicated clear differentiation among these populations. These observations, along with the close genetic distance between indigenous domestic populations and Red Junglefowl, were consistent with the primitive and ancestral state of Yunnan indigenous chickens. Protecting the unique variants of these indigenous poultry varieties from contamination with commercial breeds might provide values for improving modern agricultural livestock and breeding programs. Thus, the current study may benefit breeding management and conservation efforts.

ABSTRACT. Parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrP) is involved in the deposition of milk calcium in mammal lactation, but its role in buffalo is unclear. In this study, the full-length coding sequence of the water buffalo PTHrP gene was first isolated using reverse transcriptionpolymerase chain reaction. The protein was then subjected to molecular characterization using bioinformatic methods, and the tissue expression pattern was further assayed by semi-quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction. The water buffalo PTHrP gene contains an open reading frame of 534 base pairs encoding a polypeptide of 177 amino acid residues, a theoretical molecular weight of 20.32 kDa, and an isoelectric point of 10.00. In addition, water buffalo PTHrP was predicted to contain a signal peptide, a typical hydrophobic region with no hydrophobic transmembrane regions, and to exert its function in the cell nucleus. A conserved domain of parathyroid superfamily from amino acids 34-114 was observed in the polypeptide. Sequence comparison and the phylogenetic analysis showed that the sequence of the water buffalo PTHrP protein shared high homology with that of other mammals, particularly cattle and goat. Among the 16 tissues examined, the PTHrP gene was only expressed in adipose tissue, placenta, uterine wall, hypophysis, and mammary gland tissue, but gene expression levels were higher in the uterus wall and adipose tissue. The results of this study suggest that the PTHrP gene plays an important role in the deposition of milk calcium of water buffalo.