Intrabreed polymorphic information content of microsatellites in cattle and sheep

Eight ovine and eleven bovine microsatellites were amplified in unrelated individuals from five breeds of sheep and cattle respectively. Polymorphic information content (PIC) was calculated for each breed. It was shown that the common practice of using genotypes from several breeds to calculate PIC for a livestock species can give misleading PIC values for a given breed. Key words: Microsatellite, polymorphic information content