Abstract
Sixteen microsatellite markers were used to investigate the genetic polymorphism in Majaheem population of camels in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Genomic DNA was extracted from hair roots from 40 unrelated Majaheem camels. Out of these 16 markers, only microsatellite VOLP67 did not produce any PCR amplification from all individuals studied. Results showed that 102 alleles were generated by the 15 microsatellites loci with a mean of 6.8 and a range of 3 to 14 alleles per locus. The mean expected heterozygosity (H-e) was 0.652, ranged from 0.422 to 0.807 and the mean observed heterozygosity (H-o) was 0.665 with a range of 0.275 to 0.900. The Polymorphic Information Content (PIC) values ranged from 0.340 to 0.768 with a mean of 0.590. No significant heterozygote excess or bottleneck in nearest past was detected in the studied camel population as indicated by sign, standardized differences and Wilcoxon tests, along with the normal L shaped distribution of mode-shift test. The results indicated the utility of these 15 microsatellite loci for studying genetic polymorphism in the dromedary camel (Camelus dromedarius).