Characterization of the PGK2 associated microsatellite S0719 on SSC7 suitable for parentage and QTL diagnosis

We isolated and characterized the highly polymorphic tetra-nucleotide microsatellite S0719 on SSC7q14-q15 adjacent to the porcine testis-specific phosphoglycerate kinase 2 ( PGK2 ) gene and assigned it to the USDA-MARC linkage map on SSC7 position 77.5 cM closely linked to markers SW859 (76.3 cM) and SWR2036 (79.0 cM). In a panel of 344 individuals representing 11 pig breeds (European, Chinese, and North American), a total of 32 alleles were observed, and the overall breeds' calculated PIC (polymorphism information content), H-E (heterozygosity), and N-E (effective allele number) were 0.94, 0.94, and 16.41. Breed-specific PIC and H-E ranged from 0.66 to 0.87, whereas N-E was as low as 2.95 and as high as 7.96. Considering the high allelic variation of S0719 within and among pig breeds (79% of the genotyped animals were heterozygous), the marker is useful for individual animal identification and parentage determination. Finally, S0719 is also a valuable STS marker for fine-mapping QTL on SSC7 as position 77.5 cM is located in 25 QTL intervals ( http://www.animalgenome.org/QTLdb/ ).