VOLUME 14 NUMBER 2 (July to December 2021)

Therese Patricka C. Cailipan* and Lilian P. Villamor

Animal Genetic Resources Section, Cryobank Unit,
     Philippine Carabao Center National Headquarters and Genepool,
     Science City of Muñoz Nueva Ecija, 3120, Philippines

The Philippine carabao (Bubalus bubalis) swamp buffalo is considered the national animal and locally known as “carabao” or “kalabaw.” The resilience of Philippine carabao (PC) in working under stressful conditions and the interest to improve its potentials in meat and milk gave rise to the national upgrading program of the species through crossbreeding of swamp and riverine buffaloes. Hence, there is a need to sustain and strengthen the conservation management of the PC. The Y-linked DNA polymorphism is valuable for studying phylogeny, phylogeography, and domestication of the buffaloes from a male perspective. The study aimed to characterize the partial sequence of SRY gene for the paternal identification of PC in application toward selection, breeding, and conservation of the species in the Philippines. 150 blood samples from PC were randomly selected from 26 collection sites in the Philippines, and 11 reference SRY sequences were retrieved from NCBI Genbank. Results revealed the absence of nucleotide and amino acid sequence differences within swamp buffaloes. However, the SRY gene coding region sequences showed a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in which cytosine (C) in riverine and guanine (G) in swamp type were observed. This resulted in missense replacement of glycine in swamp instead of arginine in riverine. A point mutation for nucleotide and amino acid was informative to delineate B. bubalis subspecies for swamp and riverine buffaloes. Few animals with riverine paternal identity based on the partial sequence of SRY gene reflected the male introgression of riverine into the modern PC population.