LAUSR

This study compares the genetic variation in seven cattle breeds from the territory of Central Europe. Eleven polymorphic microsatellite loci were used to detect differences in the polymorphism of genetic markers in Czech Pied (Simmental), Slovakian Pied (Simmental), Slovakian Pinzgau, Holstein, Polish Red, German Red, and Czech Red breeds. For these loci, allele frequencies, heterozygosity, polymorphism information content, effective population size, and genetic distances were evaluated. The phylogenetic tree was constructed using the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean and it showed that the Central European Red breeds tended to cluster together, whereas the Holstein was the most divergent from the remaining breeds. These data are discussed in the context of the known origin of respective breeds.