Genetic characterization of the Bracco Italiano (Italian Hound) breed: first results on 22 STRs from the ISAG Canine Comparison Test

The Società Amatori Bracco Italiano is financing a project aimed at investigating the demographic, genetic and genealogical structure of this old breed. We show an assessment of the genetic variability for 22 STRs typed in a sample of 33 unrelated Italian hounds (“Bracchi”) and a sample of 43 dogs from other breeds (“Other dogs”). Individual codes of all subjects were traced in the breed database (20,499 animals), so that the coefficient of relationship was < 0.2 with any other animal. Three multiplexes were worked out, which allowed analyzing 22 STR markers from the panels recommended for the 2006 and 2008 ISAG canine comparison test. Allele size in bp was determined using the comparison-test reference samples as anchor values. Data were analyzed using ARLEQUIN 3.11. The number of different alleles ranged 3 to 8 (mean 5.2) in the “Bracchi”, compared with 6-13 (mean 9.5) in the “Other dogs”, whereas the expected heterozygosity ranged 0.41-0.81 (mean 0.65) compared with 0.67-0.89 (mean 0.82). Interestingly, the difference between the observed and expected heterozygosities was lower in the “Bracchi” than in the “Other dogs” (0.65 - 0.58 = 0.07 vs. 0.82 - 0.62 = 0.20), despite the absolute values were lower in the “Bracchi”.