Microsatellite DNA polymorphism of Thoroughbred horses in Korea

This study was carried out to investigate a usefulness of the microsatellite DNA markers for individual identification and parentage verification in Thoroughbred (TB) horse in Korea. 391 random TB horses samples were genotyped for nine international minimum standard markers (AHT4, 5, ASB2, HMS3, 6, 7, HTG4, 10, and VHL20). Allele frequencies, heterozygosities, polymorphic information content (PIC) values and exclusion probabilities (PE) were calculated. Observed highest allele frequencies in each locus were AHT4 O (0.3402), AHT5 K (0.4987), ASB2 R (0.2417), HMS3 I (0.5614), HMS6 P (0.4540), HMS7 N (0.2494), HTG4 K (0.5563), HTG10 I (0.2992) and VHL20 M (0.3338) in TB. The number of alleles was varied between 4 and 10 with an average number of alleles of 6.78. The expected heterozygosities and PIC values were ranged 0.546 ∼ 0.840 (mean 0.711) and 0.455 ∼ 0.819 (mean 0.664), respectively. Of the 9 markers, ASB2, HMS7 and HTG10 loci have relatively high PIC values (>0.7), and the combined PE of this panel was 0.9979. These results can give basic information for developing parentage verification and individual identification system in TB in Korea.