A molecular tool for parentage analysis in Indian major carp, Labeo rohita (Hamilton, 1822)

Abstract

Determination of genealogical relationship between broodstock and progeny is important to estimate selection response in aquaculture breeding programs. Currently, the application of microsatellite markers for parentage determination is gaining popularity in aquaculture. In the present study, 17 simple sequence repeat markers were evaluated for parentage assignment on rohu. The allele frequencies, exclusion probabilities and polymorphic information contents (PIC) were calculated using Cervus. The polymorphic information content values showed that most of the microsatellite markers were highly informative (PIC > 0.7). Based on the exclusion power, eight microsatellite markers were chosen for parentage assignment. The robustness of this suite was assessed in five full-sib and four half-sib families using two contrasting methods, a pair-wise likelihood comparison approach in Cervus and a full-pedigree likelihood method in the COLONY program. Using real data set, the correct matching rate was more than 98%, comparable to the simulated study (99.9%) in the case of Cervus 3.0 and 100% in the case of COLONY. The result of the present study implies that this set of microsatellites would be an effective tool for parentage and sibship identification, testing performance of families and estimating genetic parameters in the ongoing selective breeding program of rohu.