Breed assignment of Italian cattle using biallelic AFLP^®markers

Abstract

The verification of the breed origin of animal products is relevant for food safety and authenticity. We assessed the suitability of AFLP molecular markers in the assignment of cattle individuals to their breed of origin. Three hundred and ninety-six animals belonging to 16 cattle breeds genotyped with 141 AFLP markers were used as reference data set. Assignment was performed with likelihood (aflpop) and Bayesian (structure) methods. The Bayesian approach was superior to the likelihood algorithm with respect to (i) the correct assignment of simulated individuals to their breed of origin (93% vs. 81% respectively), (ii) the correct assignment of 44 sampled Romagnola animals (91% vs. 45% respectively) and (iii) the correct classification of animals belonging to a breed that was not included within the reference dataset. Thus, AFLP profiling in combination with the Bayesian approach seems a useful tool for breed assignment.

Comparison of Four Italian Beef Cattle Breeds by Means of Functional Genes

“…In agreement with data reported in different studies with different breeds and markers (Ciampolini et al, 2000;Negrini et al, 2007;Dalvit et al, 2008), the Piemontese breed had the highest percentage of correct assignment (87.6, with 61% of the values exceeding 95%), Lasagna et al …”

“…Concordant results on the four studied breed grouping were obtained by Blott et al (1998), using blood groups and protein polymorphisms. More recently, molecular markers, such as AFLP (Negrini et al, 2007) and microsatellites (Dalvit et al, 2008), were used to characterise the same breeds in the framework of product traceability.…”

Genetic relationships among Italian and Croatian Podolian cattle breeds assessed by microsatellite markers

“…Also Negrini et al (2006Negrini et al ( , 2007 found that BRO, differently from HolsteinFriesian, clustered together with Podolian breeds. It has to be noted that these breeds, reared mainly in the hills of Central Italy, tend to be rather dissimilar from the more geographically distant breeds (IST, MAM, and POD) belonging to the other cluster.…”

Selection of discriminant SNP markers for breed and geographic assignment of Italian sheep

“…Assignment tests based on multilocus genotypes were traditionally carried out by using microsatellites (Casellas et al, 2004;Orrù et al, 2006;Dalvit et al, 2008) or AFLP markers (De Marchi et al, 2006;Negrini et al, 2007). However, the development of high throughput SNP platforms for livestock genomes has opened new perspectives for breed traceability.…”