Abstract. This study aimed to reveal the genetic variability of
mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) displacement-loop (D-loop) region in 62 animals
belonging to three native Turkish cattle breeds, namely Anatolian Black
(AB), East Anatolian Red (EAR) and Zavot (ZAV), and to conduct phylogenetic
relationship analyses to obtain deeper information on their genetic origin
and breeding history by comparison of 6 taurine and 11 indicine
breeds, together with 66 polymorphic sites, a total of 31 haplotypes, of
which 15, 10 and 6 were detected in AB, EAR and ZAV, respectively. Mean
nucleotide and haplotype diversity were 0.01 and 0.891, respectively,
whereas the genetic differentiation derived from Wright's FST index
was 0.174 across the breeds. A significant level of total variation
(17.42 %) was observed among breeds in molecular variance analysis. Six
main haplogroups (T, T1, T2, T3, Q and I2) were detected in Anatolian cattle
populations, where T3 was the most frequent among breeds (43.55 %),
whereas I2, an indicine specific haplogroup, was observed only in ZAV. At
the breed level, phylogenetic analyses supported by 198 sequences of 17
cattle breeds and 3 outgroup species retrieved from the GenBank clustered
native Turkish cattle breeds with the taurine group rather than the indicine
one, as expected. However, indicine admixture at low frequency (8.89 %)
was detected in the ZAV breed for the first time due to more likely gene
flow from indicine cattle breeds raised in neighbour countries, particularly
Iran. This finding should be further investigated in all native Turkish and
indicine cattle breeds from nearby countries to clarify gene flow and
indicine admixture in Anatolian cattle.