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DNA is a very accurate process. Once an exclusion is found, it is almost always a guarantee that an animal is not the parent. However, due to the potential of contamina- tion in a sample, or other possible sources of variation in DNA profiling, we allow for one exclusion in the SNP process. Since a very small number of markers are evalu- ated in STR processing, we normally do not allow for exclusions. To date, we have processed more than 3,000 DNA samples, which is amazing con- sidering that the weather has been less than favorable for working cattle. We are about 90 percent complete with our conversion to SNP processing. Most of the remaining ranchers have multiple dams in the A4 pro- gram. They are converting a few at a time so that the cost isn’t too drastic at one time. When we get into late April and especially May, we hit one of the busiest times of the year. The lab backs up as well, so lead times tend to push out longer. Get your supplies ordered today so that you can take advan- tage of this off-time in DNA processing. PT 1/4 Vertical, 4 color Prime Time Broken Winds Cattle Co. Spring 2019

DNA MATTERS Continued from page 8

Using an SNP profile, offspring has A/T as its value for marker AY61135. The sire has T/T and the dam has A/A for their values at the same marker. In the STR in- stance, if the sire would have had 91/91 at the marker, the marker would have been called an exclusion and the male would not qualify as the sire of the offspring. Mating parentage adds another level of comparison in that, as previously stated, one copy of the marker must come from the sire and one from the dam. Going back to the example above, it is possible for both par- ents to have the same values at a particular marker. In the STR case, the offspring has a value of 81/97. The dam is known and her values are 91/97 at the marker. If a list of multiple sires was identified as potential sires, any sire with “91” and/or “97” as a value at that marker would be qualified as a sire. The actual sire would be more likely be determined when the dam is added. When the variation across all of the markers are taken into consideration, the list of sires is whittled down through the exclusion meth- od until the actual sire is determined. The process is actually fairly straight forward, but given the amount of data that must be compared, it requires tools designed especially for the task. We have two tools that we primarily use. One is the GeneSeek ® LIMS system, which allows us to compare offspring to lists of sires and dams, simultaneously. The other system is a manual verification within DigitalBeef. It compares an offspring to all sires or dams in the DigitalBeef system. When we begin the verification process, we first look at the potential parents pro- vided by the rancher. If we fail to qualify all offspring, we will look at all of the sires and/or dams that are in a member’s in- ventory or were in their inventory at the time of breeding. If we still have offspring that aren’t verified, we will run each non- qualifying offspring to compare against all sires and/or dams in the system to see if a sire hasn’t been properly transferred into a member’s inventory but qualifies. As you can see, we go through great efforts to try to verify all DNA submitted to the office.

Registered Akaushi Cattle Percentage Blood and Purebred BROKEN WINDS CATTLE COMPANY

Halfblood cows with ¾ calves for sale!

Joe Beltz Canyon, Texas ● (806) 683-7329 cowhand@me.com www.brokenwindscattleco.com

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www.akaushi.com • Spring 2019