The evaluation of the usefulness of pedigree verification-dedicated SNPs for breed assignment in three polish cattle populations.

The breed assignment in cattle is one of the issues of molecular genetics which needs further testing and development. Although several statistical approaches have been developed to enable such application, the obtained results strongly depend on specific populations differentiation and power of markers discrimination or their informativeness. Currently, all breeding animals are being tested for parentage with the use of panel of 12 microsatellite markers, which in near future probably will be replaced by about 100 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Despite the fact that SNPs are mainly bi-allelic, the multilocus genotypes can reach the level of polymorphism of a panel of microsatellite markers. In this study we attempted to determine the breed of origin of 741 cattle by using 120 SNPs dedicated for parentage testing and included in the BovineSNP50 BeadChip genotyping assay (Illumina). The applied Bayesian and frequency-based methods allowed such differentiation, however, the reliability of the results was not completely satisfying, suggesting that the studied markers are not the best tool for breed assignment.