Mitochondrial Markers for the Detection of Duck Breeds Using Polymerase Chain Reaction

Species identification of the components of various duck breeds has revealed that the lowest identifiable number of components depends on the breed. The results (shown on the agarose gel) of a species-specific PCR reaction for Rouen ducks were less intense than the results for the same amount of components from other popular duck breeds, suggesting differences in the Rouen duck genome. Therefore, the present study aimed to identify part of the Rouen duck’s gene sequences and to develop two new primer pairs. The first pair enables breed-independent identification of duck DNA, and the second distinguishes Rouen ducks from Chinese and Indian Runner ducks. The sequencing reaction yielded sequences of 1386 bp in length, and the identified sequence differs by around 7% from the sequences of Chinese duck species. The detected sequence contributes to improving species identification methods for duck DNA. On its basis, two primers for the identification of duck DNA were designed. The first allows for DNA amplification with the same sensitivity regardless of duck breed. The second primer’s pair is breed specific, and it distinguishes Rouen ducks from Chinese and Indian Runner ducks. Both methods are very sensitive (0.05%).