Forensic Characterization of Four New Bovine Tri-nucleotide Microsatellite Markers in Korean Cattle (Hanwoo)

We identified four new bovine tri-nucleotide microsatellite loci and analyzed their sequence structures and genetic parameters in 105 randomly selected Korean cattle (Hanwoo). Allele numbers of the loci B17S0808, B15S6253, B8S7996, and B17S4998 were 10, 11, 12, and 29, respectively. These alleles contained a simple or compound repeat sequences with some variations. Allele distributions of all these loci were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (P > 0.05). Observed heterozygosity and expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.54 (B15S6253) to 0.92 (B17S4998) and from 0.599 (B15S6253) to 0.968 (B17S4998), respectively, and two measures of heterozygosity at each locus were highly correlated. Polymorphism information content (PIC) for these 4 loci ranged from 0.551 (B15S6253) to 0.932 (B17S4998), which means that all these loci are highly informative (PIC > 0.5). Other genetic parameters, power of discrimination (PD) and probability of exclusion (PE) ranged from 0.783 (B15S6253) to 0.984 (B17S4998) and from 0.210 (B15S6253) to 0.782 (B17S4998), respectively. Their combined PD and PE values were 0.9999968 and 0.98005176, respectively. Capillary electrophoresis revealed that average peak height ratio for a stutter was 13.89% at B17S0808, 26.67% at B15S6253, 9.09% at B8S7996, and 43.75% at B17S4998. Although the degree of genetic variability of the locus B15S6253 was relatively low among these four microsatellite markers, their favorable parameters and low peak height ratios for stutters indicate that these four new tri-nucleotide microsatellite loci could be useful multiplex PCR markers for the forensic and population genetic studies in cattle including Korean native breed.