Vol. 11, Special Issue 10 (2022)

The genetic characterization study of Gir cattle was evaluated using 23 microsatellite markers suggested by FAO (ISAG). The number of alleles observed at different loci ranged from 5 (MM8, HUT27 and CSSM8) to 25 (ILSTS28 and HEL9) with a total of 205 alleles across Gir cattle. The average expected heterozygosity value (0.751±0.027) compared to average observed heterozygosity values (0.376±0.039) indicated a high amount of genetic variability in the Gir population. The Fixation index (FIS) value for all 23 microsatellite loci varied from 0.912 (CSSM066) to - 0.032 (ILSTS005) with a mean of 0.474. The polymorphic information content (PIC) values observed for most of the markers with an average of 0.909 are indicating that all these microsatellite markers are highly informative in the Gir population. The high number of observed alleles and high heterozygosity indicated the presence of high genetic variability in the Gir population and selected microsatellites were highly polymorphic and proved very useful for breed characterization.