Parentage assessment of an IVF calf from Bubalus bubalis by DNA fingerprinting

We used two synthetic oligodeoxyribonucleotide probes, OAT18 and OMS1 comprising (TGG)6 and (GGTA)4 repeat motifs, respectively, in combination with HinfI enzyme for DNA fingerprinting of a calf born from embryo transfer technology, its surrogate mother (SM) and the sperm donor (bull). Of the two polymorphic probes, OAT18 was found to be more informative for correctly establishing the parentage status of the in-vitro fertilized (IVF) calf and demonstrated the genetic relationship of the SM with the bull. Two types of cluster analysis, SAHN clustering and neighbour joining tree, performed with similarity indices of these individuals produced by OAT18 probe were found to be different. Using the SAHN cluster method, SM was found to be genetically closer to the bull than to IVF calf, whereas using the neighbour joining method, IVF was closer to bull than SM. A similar result was obtained by SAHN clustering with OMS1 probe. The relevance of this approach for parentage control in the context of animal biotechnology is described.