title: Genetic diversity and  assessment of 23 microsatellite markers for parentage testing of Santa Inês  hair sheep in Brazil.
abstract: Santa  Inês is the most common hair sheep breed in Brazil and probably has the highest  genetic diversity among sheep breeds in this country. Successful breeding  programs for Brazilian sheep breeds are not common for various reasons,  including a lack of control of parentage in the flocks. We developed an allele  frequency database for 23 STR loci for the Santa Inês breed based on 285 animals  sampled from five populations distributed across the central-western and  north-eastern regions of Brazil. The marker set included seven microsatellites  used in the 2011 International Society for Animal Genetics sheep genotyping  comparison tests and all eight microsatellites currently approved by the  Brazilian Agricultural Ministry laboratory accreditation guidelines for sheep  identification. The microsatellites had an average of 10 alleles and a mean  expected heterozygosity of 0.745. Combined paternity exclusion probabilities  when no parent or one parent was known were >99.99%. A small proportion (5.8%)  of the existing genetic variation was found to be among the Santa Inês  populations, possibly derived from genetic drift and selection. We found that  the marker panel proposed by the Agricultural Ministry, although generally  useful, should be enhanced by including more markers for improved exclusionary  power in parentage testing. This database provides a useful tool for parentage  testing of this major Brazilian breed, contributing to improved management and  breeding of existing herds.
authors.affiliation: EMBRAPA Recursos Genéticos e Biotecnologia, Brasília, DF, Brasil.
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Souza
authors.forename: S R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Paiva
authors.forename: C M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: McManus
authors.forename: H C
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Azevedo
authors.forename: A S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Mariante
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Grattapaglia
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001938:Brazil; D005819:Genetic Markers; D014644:Genetic Variation; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats / Q000235:genetics*; D012756:Sheep / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D005819:Genetic Markers