Genome-Wide SNP Discovery and Analysis of Genetic Diversity in Farmed Sika Deer (Cervus nippon) in Northeast China Using Double-Digest Restriction-Site Associated DNA Sequencing

Sika deer are an economically valuable species for their use in traditional Chinese medicine, particularly velvet antlers. Sika deer in northeast China are mostly farmed in enclosure. Therefore, genetic management of farmed sika deer would benefit from detailed knowledge of their genetic diversity. In this study, we generated over 1.45 billion high-quality paired-end reads (288 Gbp) across 42 unrelated individuals using double-digest restriction-site associated DNA sequencing (ddRAD-seq). A total of 96,188 (29.63%) putative bi-allelic SNP loci were identified with an average sequencing depth of 23x. Based on the analysis, we found that majority of the loci had a deficit of heterozygotes (F_IS> 0) and low values of H_obs, which could be due to inbreeding and Wahlund effects. We also developed a collection of high-quality SNP probes that would likely be useful in a variety of applications in genotyping for cervid species in the future.

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