Preliminary Studies On Using DNA Fingerprinting To Estimate The Kinship Within Social Groups Of Brandt's Voles

Brandt s voles(Microtus brandti) is one of the typical species of the pasture rodents. It s important to estimate the kinship of the individuals in a group when investigating the population development. Traditionally, the kinship was estimated by the ecological methods based on its behavior, the morphological character and physiological charater. Now by DNA fingerprinting, we can accurately identify the kinship. We compared the molecular markers which can identify the kinship of the individual, including RFLP, RAPD, multilocus minisatellites and microsatellites DNA fingerprinting and monolocus microsatellites DNA fingerprinting, with the result that the monolocus microsatellites DNA fingerprinting is the best.In this study, 19 microsatellites loci of the mouse (Mus musculns domesticus)were chosen from the GenBank,which had been submitted by the Nuffield Department of Surgery ,8 of the 19 loci were found polymorphic.and were used in the monolocus microsatellite DNA fingerprinting to identify the kinship among the indivivals in three groups. For the three groups, there were 2 males and 1 female parents in one group, and the kinship was clear in another group, while the kinship of the indivivals captured from the pasture was not clear in the third group. In the end, the non-father were made out from the group I III, and the individual fingerprinting map in the group II was found according with the Mendel s law. To the indivivals captured from the pasture, we identified the parent ages and the offspring ages according to the age.and then compared the monolocus microsatellite DNA fingerprint map and identified their kinship.We confirmed it was accurate to use monolocus microsatellite DNA fingerprinting to estimate the kinship within social groups of Brandt's voles.