No abstract

The Tatra Shepherd Dog is one of five Polish native breeds of dogs originating from the Polish Tatra Mountains. The objective of the study was to determine genetic variation in a population of 60 dogs of this breed, based on polymorphism of 18 microsatellite (STR) markers, recommended by ISAG for canine parentage testing. The analysis showed considerable genetic variability in the studied loci. The 100 alleles identified in the test material were used to determine the polymorphism of the discussed markers. The highest polymorphism was found in the locus AHT171, in which 8 alleles were identified and PIC and H O values exceeded 0.8. The lowest polymorphism was detected for AHTk211, in which 3 alleles were determined, and PIC and H O values were 0.233 and 0.281, respectively. Average F IS had a low negative value, which suggests zero inbreeding of the studied breed. The probability of parentage exclusion estimated for the 18 markers totalled 99.996%.

To investigate b-lactoglobulin polymorphism using polymerase chain reaction Á restriction fragment length polymorphism in Polish Mountain, East Friesian, Polish Merino and Austrian Bergschaf sheep raised for milk production, three b-LGB genotypes (AA, AB and BB) were found in all the groups, AB being the most frequent genotype in all the groups. The frequency of b-LGB A genes was 0.66 in Friesian, 0.55 in Bergschaf, 0.5 in Polish Mountain and 0.48 in Polish Merino sheep with no deviations from genetic equilibrium according to HardyWeinberg law. The relationship between b-lactoglobulin genotype and milk yield and milk composition was investigated, but no statistical differences were found. The present findings provide no conclusive evidence about the effect of different b-LGB variants on milk production traits in sheep.

Short tandem repeat (STR) loci, i.e. microsatellites are a class of genetic markers commonly used for population studies and parentage control. This study determined the usefulness of microsatellite markers recommended by International Society for Animal Genetics (ISAG) for identification and pedigree analysis in horses based on the example of Polish Hucul horse population (Equus caballus). The set of seventeen microsatellites loci was tested (AHT4, AHT5, ASB2, HMS2, HMS3, HMS6, HMS7, HTG10, HTG4, HTG6, HTG7, VHL20, ASB17, ASB23, CA425, HMS1, LEX3) for 216 individuals. All samples were genotyped and mean number of alleles per locus was estimated (7.00). Means of observed (H o ) and expected (H e ) heterozygosity were calculated 0.7288 and 0.7027, respectively. The observed heterozygosity was similar to the results of research on Hucul horse population in another area of Carpathians Mountains. The average polymorphism information content (PIC) for analyses of seventeen microsatellite markers indicates the usefulness of this set of markers for Hucul horse parentage testing.

The present study attempts to analyse sequences of the X- and Y-chromosome specific regions of the amelogenin (AMEL) gene in red deer. To this end, primers specific for each form of the gene (AMELX and AMELY) were designed based on bovine genomic sequences and the homologous regions of the genes were sequenced. The obtained sequence of AMELX gene showed high similarity with the corresponding region in cattle (91%) and humans (77%), but this similarity was slightly lower among AMELY genes and showed 87 and 73% of identical nucleotides, respectively. In addition, three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were found in the AMELX gene of the female red deer investigated. Comparative analysis of the homologous fragments of the red deer AMELX and AMELY genes confirmed the deletion of an AMELY gene fragment in relation to AMELX. Homology of both sequences was 82% of identical nucleotides in the coding region and 74% in 3' non-coding sequence. The sequences studied showed considerable similarity to homologous fragments of the human and bovine gene, but the structural differences observed lead us to design PCR-based method for sex identification in red deer, based on the presented sequences.