Implementation of a parentage control system in Portuguese beef-cattle with a panel of microsatellite markers

Abstract A study was conducted to assess the feasibility of applying a panel of 10 microsatellite markers in parentage controlof beef cattle in Portugal. In the first stage, DNA samples were collected from 475 randomly selected animals of theCharolais,LimousinandPretabreeds.Acrossbreedsandgeneticmarkers,meansforaveragenumberofalleles,ef-fective number of alleles, expected heterozygosity and polymorphic information content, were 8.20, 4.43, 0.733 and0.70, respectively. Enlightenment from the various markers differed among breeds, but the set of 10 markers re-sulted in a combined probability above 0.9995 in the ability to exclude a random putative parent. The marker-set thusdeveloped was later used for parentage control in a group of 140 calves from several breeds, where there was thesuspicion of possible faulty parentage recording. Overall, 76.4% of the calves in this group were compatible with therecordedparents,withmostincompatibilitiesduetomisidentificationofthedam.Effortsmustbemadetoimprovethequality of pedigree information, with particular emphasis on information recorded at the calf’s birth.