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Molecular sexing of tigers, Panthera tigris

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Abstract

We report the development of a fast and reliable PCR-based method for sex identification of tiger DNA designed to be incorporated into fluorescent short tandem repeat (STR) profiling. A single primer pair, consisting of a fluorescently-labelled forward primer and an unlabelled reverse primer, is used to co-amplify homologous fragments of a zinc finger (ZF) protein intron which exhibits size polymorphism between the X and Y chromosomes. The ZFX and ZFY amplicons differ in size by 12 bp and can thus be differentiated by capillary electrophoresis.

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References

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Acknowledgments

This work is part of a collaboration funded by the Darwin Initiative with the purpose of developing DNA techniques to monitor and enforce against the illegal trade of protected species in South East Asia. The authors thank the zoo organisations for reference tiger samples, and in particular to Sarah Christie (ZSL). Thanks are also due to the Programme Coordination Unit of ASEAN WEN and TRAFFIC SE Asia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, 134 Corstorphine Road, Edinburgh, EH12 6TS, Scotland, UK

    R. McEwing & R. Ogden

  2. DNP Wildlife Forensic Science Unit, Wildlife Conservation Office, Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, 61 Phaholyothin Rd., Ladyao, Chatuchak, Bangkok, 10900, Thailand

    K. Ouitavon

  3. Wildlife Genetic Resource Bank (WGRB) Laboratory, Department of Wildlife and National Parks, Km. 10, Jalan Cheras, 56100, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    J. J. Rovie-Ryan & F. T. Sitam

  4. Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology, Diponegoro 69, Jakarta, 10430, Indonesia

    Wulansari

Authors
  1. R. McEwing
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  2. K. Ouitavon
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  3. J. J. Rovie-Ryan
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  4. Wulansari
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  5. F. T. Sitam
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  6. R. Ogden
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to R. McEwing.

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McEwing, R., Ouitavon, K., Rovie-Ryan, J.J. et al. Molecular sexing of tigers, Panthera tigris . Conservation Genet Resour 4, 299–301 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12686-011-9529-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12686-011-9529-x

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