The Malopolski Horse Stallions: Genetic Diversity Estimated on the Basis of Microsatellite DNA and Class I Markers

• Published in: Folia biologica (Kraków) Vol. 66; no. 2; pp. 83 - 87
• Main Authors: Fornal, Agnieszka, Radko, Anna, Nogaj, Jan, Zielinska-Darecka, Kinga, Piestrzynska-Kajtoch, Agata
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals, Polish A 28-09-2018
• Subjects: Class I Marker; Horse; Malopolski Horse; Microsatellite Markers; Parentage Testing; Str; Thoroughbred Horse
• ISSN: 0015-5497
• DOI: 10.3409/fb_66-2.09

The Malopolski horse (Equus caballus), a halfbred warmblood breed influenced by Thoroughbred horse, was created in southern and south-eastern Poland. Four sire lines were mostly involved in Malopolski horse breeding. Today, Malopolski horse is in the genetic resources conservation
programme. The aim of our study was to evaluate the genetic diversity of Malopolski horse stallions (251 individuals). We used two types of markers: a recommended panel of 17 STRs (microsatellites) and class I markers (polymorphic blood proteins and enzymes). We also present some historical
facts about the origins of the Malopolski horse. We estimated observed and expected heterozygosities (Ho and He), the mean inbreeding index value (FIS), the polymorphic information content (PIC), power of discrimination (PD) and probability of parentage exclusion.
The studied population of Malopolski stallions exhibited high diversity of genotypes and alleles. We identified 33 phenogroups among blood cell antigens, inherited in seven system groups. The mean number of STR alleles per locus was 7.706 ± 0.460. We confirmed the usefulness of both
sets of markers for parentage analysis of the Malopolski horse breed.