PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Jee Yun Hyun
AU  - Puneet Pandey
AU  - Kyung Seok Kim
AU  - Alvin Chon
AU  - Daecheol Jeong
AU  - Jong Bhak
AU  - Mi-Hyun Yoo
AU  - Hey-Kyung Song
AU  - Randeep Singh
AU  - Mi-Sook Min
AU  - Surendra Prakash Goyal
AU  - Damdingiin Bayarkhagva
AU  - Hang Lee
TI  - Whole genome survey of big cats (Genus: <em>Panthera</em>) identifies novel microsatellites of utility in conservation genetic study
AID  - 10.1101/2020.07.08.193318
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.07.08.193318
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/07/08/2020.07.08.193318.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/07/08/2020.07.08.193318.full
AB  - Big cats (Genus: Panthera) are among the most threatened mammal groups of the world, owing to illegal transnational trade. Conservation genetic studies and effective curbs on poaching are important for the conservation of these charismatic apex predators. A limited number of microsatellite markers exists for Panthera species and researchers often cross-amplify domestic cat microsatellites to study these species. We conducted data mining of seven Panthera genome sequences to discover microsatellites for conservation genetic studies of four threatened big cat species. A total of 32 polymorphic microsatellite loci were identified in silico and tested with 99 big cat individuals and 7 Eurasian lynx. The developed markers were polymorphic in most of the tested species. We propose a set of 15 novel microsatellite markers for use in conservation genetics and wildlife forensic investigations of big cat species. Cumulatively, these markers have a high discriminatory power of one in a million for unrelated individuals and one in a thousand for siblings. Similar PCR conditions of these markers increase the prospects of achieving efficient multiplex PCR assays. This study is a pioneering attempt to synthesise genome wide microsatellite markers for big cats.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.