Application of Multilocus Molecular Markers in Cattle Breeding. 1. Minisatellites and Microsatellites

Abstract

The use of DNA fingerprinting for animal breeding requires a large number of independent molecular markers. Most of the currently used DNA probes detect multiband patterns when the probes are hybridized to the bovine genome. However, the number of loci detected by each probe and their level of polymorphism were not reported. This study estimated the usefulness of five multilocus DNA probes for cattle DNA fingerprinting.Three of these probes [S725, R28.1 and GT(12)] hybridized to the same set of loci in the bovine genome, whereas the other two (33.15 and R22.9) detected different loci. Each probe hybridized to 8 to 33 different bands in each individual;apparent diversity was high. Nevertheless,family analyses demonstrated that most of these bands were grouped inseveral large linkage groups. The number of independent loci detected by the five tested probes in cattle was estimated to be between 15 and 27. These results demonstrate that the apparent diversity revealed by a DNA probe in a population can be misleading and that only familyan alyses can determine the actual numberof loci detected by multilocus DNA probes and their polymorphism. © 1993, American Dairy Science Association. All rights reserved.