Mitochondrial ATPase 6/8 Genes Based Molecular Diversity and Phylogeny Analysis in Hog Deer (Axis porcinus)

Hog deer (Axis porcinus) is a significant species in Pakistan due to its meat, skin and antlers, but there are insufficient molecular data, provoking us to explore its genetic variation and phylogenetic analysis using ATPase 6/8 genes of mitochondrial DNA. The blood samples from hog deer were collected and DNA was extracted by using in-house organic methods. PCR was used to amplify a total of 880 bp of overlapping genes, which were then sequenced. Bioedit software was used to align, and edit the sequences, and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were evaluated. The MEGA X-based maximum likelihood method was employed to study the genetic relatedness between sequenced samples and reference sequence as well as other deer. Among query sequences, the greatest genetic distance was observed between #B2_N1 and #H2_N7 i.e., 0.1184 and smallest genetic distance is seen between #C2_N2 and #G2_N6 i.e., 0.0210. The genetic distance between query samples and 25 other deer nucleotide sequences was 0.37. The phylogenetic tree showed four nodes with bootstrap values less than 60 (56, 39, 39, 55) and were distantly related to other clades. The tree further showed that Rucervus duvauceli (swamp deer), Axis axis (chital deer), Axis porcinus and query sequences (B2_N1, H2_N7, C2_N2, G2_N6) form one clade being close relatedness. The study provided us with useful genetic analysis about Axis porcinus genetic variations and its phylogenetic relationships with related taxa, highlighting the importance to protect Pakistan's unique genetic resource.