Effectiveness of bovine microsatellites in resolving paternity cases in American bison, Bison bison L.

A set of 33 cattle microsatellite primer pairs was tested with the DNA of American bison from a captive population in Belgium and evaluated for usefulness in parentage testing. Two primer sets did not amplify and three were monomorphic. Among the polymorphic markers, the number of alleles ranged from two to nine. Heterozygosity, polymorphism information content (PIC) and probability of exclusion (PE) values were low by comparison with those obtained with the same markers in cattle. Two methods of estimating PE were used, one which assumed equal allele frequencies between parental sexes and another which took into account differences in allele frequencies between parental sexes. An internationally accepted set of nine microsatellites gives cumulative PE values of 0.98 and 0.97, respectively, for the two methods. The potential of this marker set to identify bison x cattle hybrids is discussed. Because bison and cattle have a common ancestor, these microsatellites are a useful way to establish genetic distances and can lead to the construction of phylogenetic trees.