DNA Barcoding of Domestic Indigenous Fowls from Eastern India

Poultry biodiversity widely prevails over the world, especially in Indian subcontinent as domestic indigenous fowl. Cross species hybridization of different Gallus species confers ambiguity in proper classification. Molecular approach using DNA barcoding to identify species boundaries is successfully employed to detect hybridization signal of nondescript indigenous fowls. In the present study DNA barcoding region of cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene collected from geographically distant region of five agroclimatic zones of eastern India is amplified using PCR, sequenced and subsequently deposited in GenBank. Related sequences were retrieved from global databases for phylogenic analysis using bioinformatics. The present study provides for the first time the DNA barcodes of domestic fowls from eastern India and established that the domestic fowls are grouped within the group Gallus gallus. Additional COI sequences within the same and related genus collected from different countries properly discriminate and assign their correct taxonomic positions. Low level of interspecies variation was observed between Gallus gallus and Gallus sonneratii indicating the failure to discriminate them as separate species.