Technology Details:
• DNA Parentage Testing for Equine is Fast, Affordable, and Authentic.:
• The power of genetic testing to address questions of parentage and identity depends on the accuracy of methods used and statistical analysis. Currently, hundreds of alleles are evaluated using the microsatellite tests. The genome projects have invented more powerful tools as well, but these are not necessarily better for application to parentage and identity. :
• There are two issues that drive the choice of parentage test for horses: (i) the cost of running the test; and (ii) the ability to use the genetic information that has been derived from previous tests. To do a parentage analysis, the genetic results from the parents and the offspring must be available.:
• Currently, microsatellite results are stored in an extensive computerized database, and it is these records that are used in parentage analysis. So once a horse has been tested, it need not be tested again. If the exercise of parentage verification becomes widespread among horse breeders, then it might become economically more viable. This genetic marker evaluation also holds promise for other performance traits along with parentage assignment.:
• Since, microsatellites have been used for parentage testing and individual identification because of their virtue of being highly polymorphic and show abundant sequences dispersed throughout most eukaryotic nuclear genomes, work has been initiated at ICAR- National Research Centre on Equines, Hisar, Haryana. :
• For developing the facility of parentage verification of equine foals the blood samples were collected from the foal and its known reported parents. Genomic DNA was extracted from the blood and hair follicles and analysed with a panel of 21 Microsatellite markers which were found highly polymorphic and heterozygous in equines