The Nagoya breed is a popular Japanese native chicken, a dual-purpose breed raised for eggs and meat. We used ,. microsatellite markers were employed to analyze the diversity and di#erentiation of the four strains (NG+-.) of the Nagoya breed established at the Aichi-ken Agricultural Research Center. The proportion of polymorphic loci (Ppoly) was *.2-. The mean number of alleles per locus ranged from ,./2to -.+,/. The mean expected heterozygosity ranged from *.-.+ to *.-3/. The index of random

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... ting (Fis) per population ranged from *.*/. to *.+/2. Significant population di#erentiation was detected among all strain pairs. These data suggest that the Nagoya breed has low genetic diversity and the four strains are highly di#erentiated. The genetic information in the current study will contribute to e#ective breeding and e$cient conservation of the Nagoya breed.