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Experts in paternity testing

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Paternity testing service for animal breeding programmes

Zoos and aquariums play a key role in species conservation through their breeding programmes of threatened species. For these programmes to be useful, care must be taken to avoid possible inbreeding. By using molecular paternity tests, you can determine the parents of a given offspring. They allow you to take the necessary measures to avoid mating close relatives.

Our paternity testing service uses microsatellite markers that are found all across the genome. These regions are inherited by the offspring so that one allele comes from the dam and the other one from the sire. Adults can be confirmed or excluded as parents by comparing their microsatellite genetic profiles with those of the offspring.

The image shows a paternity analysis that is usually ordered by zoos and aquariums for a number of species of interest such as seals, dolphins, bears, etc. The analysis consists of DNA isolation, PCR amplification of the target microsatellite loci, fragment analysis, and bioinformatic analysis to get the genotypes of the individuals under study. This will allow for the assignment of paternities within the group of individuals studied.

Step 1

We isolate DNA from your samples. We have adapted different DNA isolation protocols, depending on the starting biological material.

Step 2

We amplify the microsatellite loci under study using fluorescently-labelled primer pairs.

Step 3

We run the labelled amplicons in the sequencer.

Step 4

We analyse the electropherograms and call the alleles observed at each locus.

What you receive

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A report with a summary of the methods followed.
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The raw electropherogram files.

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The results of the bioinformatic analysis including a table with the alleles called at each locus in each individual, indicating which of the potential sires and dams examined can be excluded as parents. If you require additional analyses, please let us know and we will do our best to meet your needs.
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At no additional cost, our project specialists will be available to you after project delivery. We offer up to five 60-min sessions per project, depending on the project size.

What we need

Your samples appropriately preserved depending on the sample type (ethanol, silica gel, frozen, or another suitable preservation method). If required, we provide sampling kits and sampling collection guidelines to ensure that your samples arrive at our lab in optimal conditions.

Contact us for further information and pricing

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