Development of a mitochondrial marker for conservation genetics of slow loris

抄録

The slow loris is listed as ‘Vulnerable’in the IUCN Red List because they are being overhunted for the illegal pet trade, used for meat and as ingredients of traditional medicine. In Vietnam, two species (Nycticebus bengalensis and N. pygmaeus) are found. The Center for Rescue and Conservation of Organisms (CRCO) of Hoang Lien National Park protects diverse organisms, including the slow loris, and tries to reintroduce them to the wild. However, it is hard to get information about the original habitat of confiscated animals. The purpose of the study is to accumulate mtDNA sequence data from slow loris of known origin, in order to establish a tracking system that infers the origin of these protected animals using DNA information. In this presentation, we report about the development of a mitochondrial marker that can detect intra-specific variation in these two species of slow loris. In order to avoid amplifying NUMT, we amplified the target region by using a long PCR product of the 9 kb region as template DNA. Next, we determined the target 1.8 kb region spanning a full length of cyt b gene and HVS1 of D-loop. Intra-specific variation was detected in both species, 9 N. bengalensis and 5 N. pygmaeus from Vietnam, including individuals without information of origin. Samples of N. bengalensis from Myanmar (n=2) and Laos (n=1) were included in the comparison of DNA sequence variations. The 1.8 kb region examined in this study can be applicable to the phylogeogaraphic study of the slow loris.