[Genetic relationships between Tuva population and the neighboring populations in the Altai Region of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region].

In the Hanasi scenic spot of the Altai Region, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China, there is a special population known as Xinjiang Tuvinians for short. These Tuvinians were classified as Mongolians in the early 1950s by the National Ethnic Affairs Commission of China, but they claimed that they have an independent origin. To resolve this dispute and their genetic relationships with the people in the neighboring regions, we randomly selected 150 male Tuvinians in the Altai Region. Fourteen Y chromosomal markers were genotyped and eleven haplogroups were constructed. The frequencies of the haplogroups K-M9 and Q-M242 were higher in Xinjiang Tuvinians or Tuvinians in the Tuva Republic than those in the other populations (e.g., Mongolians and Kazakh). Principal component analysis , multi-dimensional scaling analysis and further phylogenetic tree analysis revealed that the Xinjiang Tuvinians were far separated from Mongolians and Kazakh. Based on these results, we proposed that Xinjiang Tuvinians are genetically distinct from Mongolians and Kazakh.

The complete mitochondrial genome sequence of Hemibagrus sp. (Siluriformes: Bagridae), molecular data for species identification.

In this study, we determined and described the complete mitogenome sequence of Hemibagrus sp. for the first time, which is 16,513 bp in length, and contains 37 genes, including 13 protein-coding genes, 2 rRNAs, 22 tRNAs, 1 origin of replication on the light-strand (OL) and a putative control region. The overall base composition was 31.1% A, 26.9% T, 26.9% C, 15.1% G, with a slight AT bias (58.0%). All protein-coding genes shared the start codon ATG, except for COI, which began with GTG. The tRNA-Ser(UGC) couldn't be folded into the typical cloverleaf secondary structure because its dihydrouridine arm is replaced by a simple loop. These results are expected to provide useful molecular data for species identification and further phylogenetic studies of Bagridae and Siluriformes.

Genetic differentiation between red deer from different sample sites on the Tianshan Mountains (Cervus elaphus), China.

About 273 individuals were identified from 471 fecal samples from six different red deer populations in China. The genetic structure showed that the red deer from the western and eastern Tianshan Mountains was different. A total number of 12 haplotypes were defined by 97 variable sites by the control region (CR), and 10 haplotypes were defined by 34 variable sites by cytochrome b. There was no haplotype sharing between red deer populations from western and eastern Tianshan Mountains by the CR and the cytochrome b. The red deer populations from west were clade with wapiti from North American and red deer from Siberia, while red deer populations from east were clade with red deer from Crimea in Pleistocene rather than west at present. The result of NETWORK also showed that red deer populations from western and eastern Tianshan Mountains were different. The haplotype and the Fst value between western and eastern Tianshan red deer were significantly different. The AMOVA analysis showed that 97.34% and 1.14% of the total genetic variability were found within populations and among populations within groups, respectively, by microsatellite. AMOVA for mitochondria showed that most of the variance was explained among-group. The Fst, pairwise distance, and phylogenetic relationship result showed that red deer between western and eastern Tianshan were more different than some of the red deer from North-Asia, South-Asia, East-Asia, and wapiti. All data from this study do support that the genetic characteristics of red deer between western and eastern Tianshan Mountains by microsatellite, control region, and cytochrome b were different.