MEASUREMENT OF GENETIC-PARAMETERS WITHIN AND BETWEEN TURKEY LINES USING DNA-FINGERPRINTING

An experiment was conducted to estimate genetic parameters in six expe rimental and five commercial primary breeding turkey lines using DNA f ingerprinting. Eighteen individual DNA samples per line were digested with an HaeIII restriction enzyme and hybridized with Jeffreys' 33.6 p robe. The DNA fingerprints were analyzed with computer programs to mea sure band sharing (BS) and band frequencies. Within lines, BS ranged f rom 0.39 to 0.62 and reflected the history of the experimental lines. Among lines, BS ranged from 0.21 to 0.33 with an average of 0.26. The BS among the experimental lines reflected known relationships. All lin es were subdivided based on indices of population subdivision. About 2 6 hypervariable loci were estimated from band frequencies. Average het erozygosity and genetic variability estimated from band frequencies we re significantly different among lines and displayed a result very sim ilar to the BS among lines. Genetic distance indices among lines were also significantly different and reflected known relationships between the experimental lines. The experimental selected lines displayed low er genetic diversity than did the other Lines. The parameters measurin g generic diversity within lines had higher correlation coefficients a mong them than did the parameters between lines. The computer program used in this study made DNA fingerprinting easier to use in population analysis.