• Animal Bioscience
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.941-948
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• 2021

Objective: In Japan, approximately 50 breeds of indigenous domestic chicken, called Japanese native chickens (JNCs), have been developed. JNCs gradually became established based on three major original groups, "Jidori", "Shoukoku", and "Shamo". Tosa-Jidori is a breed of Jidori, and archival records as well as its morphologically primitive characters suggest an ancient origin. Although Jidori is thought to have been introduced from East Asia, a previous study based on mitochondrial D-loop sequences demonstrated that Tosa-Jidori belongs to haplogroup D, which is abundant in Southeast Asia but rare in other regions, and a Southeast Asian origin for Tosa-Jidori was therefore suggested. The relatively small size of the D-loop region offers limited resolution in comparison with mitogenome phylogeny. This study was conducted to determine the phylogenetic position of the Tosa-Jidori breed based on complete mitochondrial D-loop and mitogenome sequences, and to clarify its evolutionary relationships, possible maternal origin and routes of introduction into Japan. Methods: Maximum likelihood and parsimony trees were based on 133 chickens and consisted of 86 mitogenome sequences as well as 47 D-loop sequences. Results: This is the first report of the complete mitogenome not only for the Tosa-Jidori breed, but also for a member of one of the three major original groups of JNCs. Our phylogenetic analysis based on D-loop and mitogenome sequences suggests that Tosa-Jidori individuals characterized in this study belong to the haplogroup D as well as the sub-haplogroup E1. Conclusion: The sub-haplogroup E1 is relatively common in East Asia, and so although the Southeast Asian origin hypothesis cannot be rejected, East Asia is another possible origin of Tosa-Jidori. This study highlights the complicated origin and breeding history of Tosa-Jidori and other JNC breeds.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.755-761
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• 2005

Blood samples were collected from eight native Japanese breeds of chickens (Miyadi-dori, Ohiki, Onaga-dori, Shoukoku, Tosa-Jidori, Tosa-Kukin, Toutenkou and Uzurao) and two foreign breeds of chickens (White Leghorn and Rhode Island Red) to examine the genetic variability and relationships among the breeds by using a microsatellite DNA technique. Except for the Shoukoku breed, the other Japanese chicken breeds all originate from Kochi Prefecture. Ohiki, Onaga-dori, Tosa-Jidori, Toutenkou and Uzurao are fancy fowl, and Miyadi-dori and Tosa-Kukin are utility fowl. Among the fancy fowl, Ohiki, Onaga-dori, and Toutenkou males have thick and long feathers in the saddle and tail. Genetic variabilities of the 20 microsatellites examined, varied depending on the breed: the mean number of alleles per locus ranged from 2.05 (Miyadi-dori) to 3.90 (Rhode Island Red); proportion of polymorphic loci ranged from 0.75 (Miyadi-dori) to 1.00 (Rhode Island Red, Shoukoku and Uzurao); and mean expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.330 (Miyadi-dori) to 0.607 (Rhode Island Red). Unique microsatellite alleles were detected in each breed. Using the neighbour-joining method, phylogenetic trees were constructed based on the genetic distances of D$_{A}$ and D$_{ST}$. Among the breeds originating from Kochi Prefecture, fancy and utility breeds belonged to different clusters. Among the fancy breeds, those having thick and long feathers in the tail and saddle showed a close genetic relationship to the Shoukoku breed, which also has thick and long feathers in the tail and saddle.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.23 no.9
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• pp.1137-1144
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• 2010

In this study, to examine genetic variability within a breed and genetic relationships between populations/breeds, we genotyped 606 birds from seven Japanese native chicken breeds at seven polymorphic loci of egg white proteins and compared those with Asian native chicken populations and commercial breeds. Genotyping of the Japanese native breeds showed that ovalbumin, two ovoglobulins and ovotransferrin were polymorphic, but ovomacroglobulin, ovoflavoprotein and lysozyme were monomorphic. The proportion of polymorphic loci ($P_{poly}$) and average heterozygosity ($\bar{H}$) within a population ranged from 0.286 to 0.429 and from 0.085 to 0.158, respectively. The coefficient of gene differentiation ($G_{ST}$) was 0.250 in the Japanese native chicken breeds. This estimate was higher than that of Asian native chicken populations ($G_{ST}$ = 0.083) and of commercial breeds ($G_{ST}$ = 0.169). Dendrogram and PCA plot showed that Satsuma-dori, Jitokko, Amakusa-daio and Hinai-dori were closely related to each other and grouped into Asian native chickens and that Tsushima-jidori, Nagoya and Chan (Utaichan) were ramified far from other Japanese native chicken breeds. The egg white protein polymorphisms demonstrated that the population differentiation of the seven Japanese native chicken breeds was relatively large.