Comparison of different paternity test panels in sheep

Abstract

The aims of this study were to evaluate different paternity test panels with 17 microsatellite markers for their effectiveness in paternity analysis and to identify pedigree error rates in the Kangal Akkaraman breed of sheep. The animal material for the study consisted of 175 Kangal Akkaraman sheep, 35 rams, and their 140 offspring, raised on farms and bred using controlled mating. The panels were created according to probability of exclusion (PE) of 17 studied microsatellites. A total of 240 alleles were detected across 17 microsatellite loci. The overall mean value of the polymorphic information content (PIC) (0.78) indicated that the microsatellite panels were highly polymorphic. Probability of identity (PI) values ranged between 0.02 and 0.13. It can be said that pedigree error (2.94%) occurred at a low rate in this study. The highest combined PE values were obtained from Panel-16 (0.9999771) as expected. Panel-8 and Panel-9 met the PE value accepted in the literature (0.999). The results show that these panels are cheaper and more practical than other panels formed for Kangal Akkaraman.