The white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) is an important, sustainable-use species in Mexico; 14 subspecies are widely distributed throughout the Mexican territory. The criteria for classifying subspecies is based on morphological features throughout their geographical range; however, the complete genetic characterization of Mexican subspecies has not been established. The objective of the present work is to report the mitogenomes of 9 of the 14 white-tailed deer subspecies from Mexico and identify their unique variations. Typical vertebrate mitogenomes structures (i.e., 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, and 2 rRNA genes) were observed in the studied subspecies. The greatest numbers of polymorphisms were identified in the D-loop, ND4, ND5, CYTB/ COI, ATP6, and COIII genes. Phylogenetic analyses showed that the southern and southeastern subspecies were distinct from the central and northern subspecies; the greatest genetic distances were also observed between these 2 groups. These subspecies-specific variations could be useful for designing a strategy to genetically characterize the studied subspecies.
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18 November 2015
The complete mitochondrial genomes of nine white-tailed deer subspecies and their genomic differences
Pascuala Ambriz-Morales,
Xochitl F. De La Rosa-Reyna,
Ana Maria Sifuentes-Rincon,
G. Manuel Parra-Bracamonte,
Abraham Villa-Melchor,
Omar Chassin-Noria,
Williams Arellano-Vera
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Journal of Mammalogy
Vol. 97 • No. 1
February 2016
Vol. 97 • No. 1
February 2016