Parentage verification of Valle del Belice dairy sheep using multiplex microsatellite panel

The aim of this work was to develop and evaluate a PCR based microsatellite markersmultiplex system for parentage verification of Sicilian Valle del Belice dairy sheep. A totalof 85 samples of blood and hair were collected and genotyped for 24 microsatellite markersin multiplex electrophoresis runs. A total of 269 alleles were detected across the 24 lociinvestigated. The PIC considering all loci was equal to 0.736, showing that this microsatellitepanel was very polymorphic and highly informative. A parentage test was performed on 64families generated with multiple sires. Results indicated 20.3% and 29.7% misidentificationrates for females and males, respectively. In 8 cases, out of 13 maternal exclusions, the realmother was identified among other females within the flock. The observed misidentificationrates indicated the necessity of keeping more efficient collection of genealogical records,in order to properly control inbreeding or implement a breeding program. The parentagetest presented here could be a helpful tool on verifying or even reconstructing the currentpedigree data of Valle del Belice dairy sheep breed