Microsatellite polymorphism in Japanese mongrel dogs

The genetic variability of 182 unrelated mongrel dogs living in various areas of Japan (from Hokkaido to Okinawa) was studied by collecting their blood. Ten microsatellite loci were chosen from different autosomal chromosomes. After combining a few rare adjoining alleles to allelic classes, it was confirmed that the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium was attained in each locus. The polymorphic information contents (PICs) of the loci, Ren37A11, Ren48E01, AHTk253, ZuBeCa30, Ren277K09, Ren42N13, AHT130, PEZ03, PEZ12, and AHT121, were 0.58, 0.63, 0.67, 0.67, 0.68, 0.71, 0.79, 0.80, 0.80, and 0.80, and the power of discriminations (PDs) were 0.80, 0.85, 0.87, 0.88, 0.88, 0.89, 0.94, 0.94, 0.94, and 0.94, respectively. The combined mean exclusion chance (MEC) was 0.9995, indicating that these microsatellite loci are useful for kinship testing of Japanese dogs.