Exclusion of paternity based on a panel of 89 SNP markers in a sample of Corriedale and Merino sheep from Uruguay

Abstract

The performance of an 89 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) marker panel for paternity exclusion was studied in populations of Corriedale and Merino sheep in Uruguay. Minor allele frequency (MAF) values of the markers ranged from 0.05 to 0.5 for Corriedale and from 0.08 to 0.5 for Merino. Using fewer than 50 markers, high probability values (0.9999) were achieved for excluding both parents and also when one of the parents was known. In the most common case of paternity exclusion, when only the genotype of a possible parent is given and the mother is unknown, achieving a probability value of 0.9999 involved almost all the markers for Merino and it was not possible to reach that level for Corriedale (maximum value = 0.9998). These results suggest that the panel could be useful with Corriedale and Merino populations. However, it may be insufficient to establish paternity in highly related populations. For that reason, development of an SNP panel for paternity exclusion under more complex situations is suggested.