During the
subsequent history of livestock, the main evolutionary forces of mutation,
selective breeding, adaptation, isolation and genetic drift have created an
enormous diversity of local populations. Organizing and documentation of basic
tools for breed characterization are the major aims of the review with the scope
of available markers. This farm animal genetic diversity has a primary
requirement to meet current production needs in various environments. In
addition, farm animal genetic diversity has a great application of allowing sustained
genetic improvement, and to facilitate rapid adaptation to changing breeding
objectives. Furthermore, animal genetic diversity provides wider range
opportunity for selection and improving. The nondescript breed could be
Identified and characterizing by morphological or/and molecular markers to know
their potential, to know their special adaptive trait and their status for
further actions (improvement, conservation). Markers are conspicuous object
used to distinguish or to show variation in population or individual level.
Morphological markers normally refer to external animal characteristics which
can be obtained by direct visual observation and measurement and used in the
identification, classification, and characterization of genetic evolution of
different species or populations. Since the measurement and identification of
animal morphological traits usually take a long time and limited application in
evaluation of qualitative traits, molecular markers have developed quickly, and
they are becoming more and more informed. Whatever data type (morphological and
molecular data) needs appropriate statistical application. In general,
diversity, markers and statistical application are the preliminary tools of
breed characterization and breed improvements.
Cite this paper
Hailu, A. and Getu, A. (2015). Breed Characterization: Tools and Their Applications. Open Access Library Journal, 2, e1438. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1101438.
FAO
(Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) (1999) Statistical Database. Food and Agriculture Or- ganization of the United Nations. Rome. www.fao.org
Weigend, S., Groeneveld, L.F., Lenstra, J.A., Eding, H., Toro, M.A., Scherf, B., Pilling, D., Negrini, R., Finlay, E.K., Jianlin, H. and Groeneveld, E., The GLOBALDIV Consortium (2009) Genetic Diversity in Farm Animals—A
Review. International Society for Animal
Genetics, Animal Genetics, 41, 6-31.
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations) (2011) Draft Guidelines
on Phenotypic Characterization. Intergovernmental Technical Working Group on Animal Genetic Resources for Food
and Agriculture and Commission on Genetic Resources for Food
and Agriculture, Rome, 24-26 November 2011, 87 p.
Van Wezel, I.L. and Rodgers, R.J. (1996) Morphological Characterization of Bovine Primordial
Follicles and Their Environment in Vivo. Biology of Reproduction, 55, 1003-1011. http://dx.doi.org/10.1095/biolreprod55.5.1003
Gizaw, S., Van Arendonk, J.A.M., Komen, H., Windig, J.J. and Hanotte, O. (2007) Population Structure,
Genetic Vari- ation and Morphological Diversity in Indigenous Sheep of Ethiopia. Animal Genetics, 38, 621-628. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2052.2007.01659.x
Zewdu, W. (2004) Indigenous Cattle Genetic Resources,
Their Husbandry Practices, and Breeding Objectives in North- western Ethiopia. M.Sc. Thesis, Alemaya University, Alemaya, 143 p.
Yang, W.J., Kang, X.L., Yang, Q.F., Lin,Y. and Fang, M.Y. (2013) Review on the Development of Genotyping Methods for
Assessing Farm Animal Diversity. Journal
of Animal Science and Biotechnology, 4, 2. http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2049-1891-4-2
Nadler, C.F., Hoffmann, R.S. and Woolf, A. (1973) G-Band Patterns as Chromosomal Markers, and the Interpretation
of Chromosomal Evolution in Wild Sheep (Ovis).Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences, 29, 117-119. http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2049-1891-4-2
Popescu, N.C., Evans, C.H. and Di Paolo, J.A. (1976) Chromosome Patterns (G and C Bands) of in Vitro Chemical Carcinogen-Transformed Guinea Pig Cells. Cancer Research, 36, 1404-1413.
Buvanendran, V. and Finney, D.J. (1967) Linkage Relationships of Egg Albumen Loci in the Domestic
Fowl. British Poultry Science, 8, 9-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00071666708415644
Drinkwater, R.D. and Hetzel, D.J.S. (1991)
Application of Molecular Biology to Understanding Genotype-Environment Interactions in Livestock Production. Proceedings of an
International Symposium on Nuclear Techniques in Animal Production and Health, Vienna, 15-19 April 1991, 437-452.
Jonker, J., Meurs, G. and Balner, H. (1982) Typing for RhLA-D in Rhesus Monkeys: II. Genetics of
the D Antigens and Their Association with DR Antigens in a Population of
Unrelated Animals. Tissue Antigens, 19, 69-78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1399-0039.1982.tb01417.x
Koh, M.C., Lim, C.H., Chua, S.B., Chew, S.T. and Phang, S.T.W. (1998) Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) Fingerprints for
Identification of Red Meat Animal Species. Meat
Science, 48, 275-285. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0309-1740(97)00104-6
Demeke, T., Adams, R.P. and Chibbar, R. (1992) Potential Taxonomic Use of Random Amplified Polymorphic
DNA (RAPD): A Case Study in Brassica. Theoretical
and Applied Genetics, 84, 990-994. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00227415
Koller, B., Lehmann, A. and McDermott, J.M. (1993) Identification of Apple Cultivars Using RAPD Markers. Theoretical and Applied Genetics, 85, 901-904. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00225036
Meunier, J.R. and Grimont, P.A.D. (1993) Factors Affecting Reproducibility of Random Amplified
Polymorphic DNA Fingerprinting. Research
in Microbiology, 144, 373-379. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0923-2508(93)90194-7
Blears, M.J., De
Grandis, S.A., Lee, H. and Trevors, J.T. (1998) Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP): A Review of
the Procedure and Its Applications. Journal
of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology, 21, 99-114. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/sj.jim.2900537
Vos, P., Hogers, R., Bleeker, M., Reijans, M., Lee, T.V.D., Hornes, M., Friters, A., Pot, J., Paleman, J., Kuiper, M. and Zabeau, M. (1995) AFLP: A New Technique for DNA Fingerprinting. Nucleic Acids Research, 23, 4407-4414. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nar/23.21.4407
Vos, P. and Kuiper, M. (1997) AFLP Analysis. In: Caetano-Anollés, G. and Gresshoff, P.M.,
Eds., DNA
Markers: Protocols, Applications, and Overviews, Wiley, New
York, 115-131.
Paglia, G. and Morgante, M. (1998) PCR-Based Multiplex DNA Fingerprinting Technique for
the Analysis of Conifer genome. Molecular
Breeding, 4, 173-177. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1009637608702
Ajmone-Marsan, P., Negrini, R., Milanesi, E., Bozzi, R., Nijman, I.J., Buntjer, J.B., Valentini, A. and Lenstra, J.A. (2002) Genetic Distances within and across Cattle Breeds as
Indicated by Biallelic AFLP Markers. Animal
Genetics, 33, 280-286. http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2052.2002.00865.x
Negrini, R., Nijmanl, I.J., Milanesi, E.,
Moazami-Goudarzi, K., Williams, J.L., Erhardt, G., Dunner, S., Rodellar, C., Valentini, A., Bradley, D.G., Olsaker, I., Kantanen, J., Ajmone-Marsan, P. and Lenstra, J.A. (2007) The European Cattle Genetic Diversity Consortium:
Differentiation of European cattle by AFLP Fingerprinting. Animal Genetics, 38, 60- 66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2052.2007.01554.x
Litt, M. and Luty, J.A. (1989) A Hyper Variable Microsatellite Revealed by in Vitro Amplification of a Dinucleotide
Repeat within the Cardiac Muscle Actin Gene. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 44, 397-401.
Tautz, D., Arctander, P., Minelli, A. and Thomas, R.H. (2002) DNA Points the Way Ahead in Taxonomy. Nature, 418, 479. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/418479a
Fang, M.,
Braunschweig, M., Hu, X., Hu, L., Feng, J., Li, N. and Wu, C. (2005) Genetic Variation of Exon 2 of SLA-DQB Gene in Chinese Pigs. Biochemical
Genetics, 43, 119-125. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10528-005-1504-3
Fang, M., Larson, G., Soares Ribeiro, H., Li, N. and Andersson, L. (2009) Contrasting Mode of
Evolution at a Coat Color Locus in Wild and Domestic Pigs. PLoS Genetics, 5, e1000341. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1000341
Hiendleder, S.,
Hiendleder, S., Thomsen, H., Reinsch, N., Bennewitz, J., Leyhe-Horn, B., Looft, C., Xu, N., Medjugorac, I., Russ, I., Kühn, C., Brockmann, G.A., Blümel, J., Brenig, B., Reinhardt, F., Reents, R., Averdunk, G., Schwerin, M., Forster, M., Kalm, E. and Erhardt, G. (2003) Mapping of QTL for Body Conformation and Behavior in
Cattle. Journal of Heredity, 94, 496-506. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jhered/esg090
Montaldo, H.H. and Meza-Herrera, C.A. (1998) Use of Molecular Markers and Major Genes in the Genetic
Improvement of Livestock. Electronic
Journal of Biotechnology, 1,
83-89. http://dx.doi.org/10.2225/vol1-issue2-fulltext-4
Vignal, A., Milan, D. and SanCristobal, M. (2002) A Review on SNP and Other Types of Molecular Markers
and Their Use in Animal Genetics. Genetics Selection
Evolution, 34, 275-305. http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1297-9686-34-3-275
Primmer, C.R., Borge, T. and Lindell, J. (2002) Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism Characterization in
Species with Limited Available Sequence Information: High Nucleotide Diversity
Revealed in the Avian Genome. Molecular
Ecology, 11, 603-612. http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.0962-1083.2001.01452.x
Tsuchihashi, Z. and Dracopoli, N.C. (2002) Progress in High-Throughput SNP Genotyping Methods. The Pharmacogenomics Journal, 2, 103-110. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/sj.tpj.6500094
Werner, M., Sych, M., Herbon, N., Illig, T., Konig, I.R. and Wjst, M. (2002) Large-Scale Determination of SNP Allele Frequencies in DNA
Pools Using MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry. Human
Mutation, 20, 57-64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/humu.10094
Welsh, J. and McClelland, M. (1990) Fingerprinting Genomes Using PCR with Arbitrary
Primers. Nucleic Acids Research, 18, 7213-7218. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nar/18.24.7213
Hebert, P.D.N., Cywinska, A., Ball, S.L. and de Waard, J.R. (2003) Biological Identifications through DNA Barcodes. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 270, 313-321. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2002.2218
Hebert, P.D.N., Penton, E.H. and Burns, J.M. (2004) Ten Species in One: DNA Barcoding Reveals Cryptic Species
in the Neotropical Skipper Butterfly Astraptes
fulgerator. Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 101, 14812-14817. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0406166101
Hajibabaei, M., Janzen, D.H. and Burns, J.M. (2006) DNA Barcodes Distinguish Species of Tropical Lepidoptera. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103, 968-971. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0510466103
Meier, R., Shiyang, K. and Vaidya, G. (2006) DNA Barcoding and Taxonomy in Diptera: A Tale of High Intraspecific
Variability and Low Identification Success. Systematic
Biology, 55, 715-728. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10635150600969864
Williams, J.G.K., Kubeilik, A.R., Livak, K.J., Rafalski, J.A. and Tingey, S.V. (1990) DNA Polymorphisms Amplified by Arbitrary Primers Are
Useful as Genetic Markers. Nucleic Acids
Research, 18, 6531-6535. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nar/18.22.6531