Genetic relationships among collections of the Persian sturgeon, Acipenser percicus, in the south Caspian Sea detected by mitochondrial DNA Restriction fragment length polymorphisms

In the present study, mitochondrial DNA polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) assay was used to assess the population structure and genetic relationships among six Persian sturgeon, Acipenser persicus populations from south Caspian Sea along the Iranian coast. The complete nucleotide dehydrogenase subunit 5 (NADH 5) region of mtDNA amplified by PCR was digested with five restriction enzymes. In total, 154 individuals from six populations including: Guilan (Zone1-2), Mazandaran (Zone 3 and 5), Golestan (Zone 4) and Sefidroud River, from south Caspian Sea along the Iranian coast were analyzed using five restriction endonucleases (Rsa? , Hinf? , HaeIII, Mbo? and Cfr13?), yielding 17 haplotypes. Samples from Sefidroud River were clearly identified by cluster and molecular variance model (AMOVA) analyses. This collection showed dominant haplotypes that were little in populations from the other geographic areas. The mean haplotype diversity (h) and nucleotide diversity (?) were 0.739?0.038 and 0.0105?0.0043, respectively. Based on heterogeneity test haplotype frequencies of Persian sturgeon populations and Monte-Carlo with 1000 replicates in PCR-RFLP method significant differences were seen (?2 =37.12, P< 0.0001) and these results showed that haplotype distribution in different location were significant and populations of Sefidroud were statistically significant (P< 0.0001). This result suggests that the unique genetic structure of Sefidroud River represents a highly valuable genetic resource and should now be treated as demographically independent and managed separately.