Wildlife Genetics International is a company that specializes in parentage certification for elk and deer.  I am presently the game farm project manager at WGI and I had the rewarding opportunity this summer to travel through parts of Saskatchewan and Alberta to meet with several game producers. It was a great learning experience and when I returned home to Nelson, BC, my head was full of new knowledge gained from first-hand contact with the producer’s end of the game farming industry.  I also became more aware that many producers have some unanswered questions and misconceptions about subjects such as sampling methodology and the degree of relatedness that we can determine.  This article will address some of the common questions that I was asked during my trip. 

Thanks to sci-fi movies such as Jurassic Park and popular media surrounding forensics techniques, it is common knowledge that it is possible to collect DNA from many types of samples. In fact, we can determine genotypes from DNA extracted from hair roots, antler shavings, used semen straws, and even blood or bone.  Therefore, even if it is now impossible to collect a fresh sample from an important sire in your herd, we can still determine parentage using antler shavings taken from your mounted rack. There are certain advantages or disadvantages to take into consideration for each sample type, such as convenience and sample quality.  To guarantee the best data, I would have to recommend sending hair, antler or blood samples. Unfortunately, extraction from used semen straws can result in mixed data because female cells are collected by the straw during fertilization. Hair and antler shavings are the most common sample types that we receive because they are easy to collect.

 A couple of tips for hair samples are: 1) hairs pulled from the tail have proven to be best 2) the harder the hair is to pull, the better the sample.  Presumably this is because tail hairs have large roots, and therefore more material to extract DNA from.  Hairs that are easy to pull may be nearly ready to fall out naturally and won’t pull out much material with the root.  Inspect the hairs visually to ensure that roots are present and include approximately 50 hairs for processing. I highly recommend against storing hair samples in plastic or waxed envelopes because it is more likely that samples will become moist and degrade. It is also not a bad idea to consider maintaining a sample collection at your home.  Store your samples in a dry, dark place such as a drawer or cupboard.

For antlers or bone, collect shavings from drilling up the core.  A 1/8” drill bit will do the trick and it is only necessary to drill in 1/2”. Again paper envelopes are adequate for sample storage.  Make sure to clean your drill bit between samples with water and don’t burn the sample by drilling too fast.

On that note, it is important to take steps to prevent contamination while collecting samples, but certain preventative measures are not necessary. Alcohol, which is thought to be a good cleanser because of its ability to sterilize surfaces, causes DNA to precipitate or become concentrated; it is better to clean with water.  It is also not necessary to wear gloves, in fact, they may compromise sample purity if there is a build-up of static electricity.  Simply inspect your hands and clothing between samples to make sure there is no possibility of sample transfer.

People commonly asked whether we could determine siblings or grandparents and grandchildren in situations when parents were not available for testing.  In short, we cannot and the answer for that is fairly simple. Mendel’s Law of Inheritance states that each individual will inherit half of each parents genes. Each sibling may inherit an entirely different half of each of their parents alleles, which makes it difficult to verify relatedness without having the parents available for analysis. One can also conclude that a fawn will only have 1/4 of each of their grandparent’s alleles.  That does not provide enough resolving power to determine if a fawn and grandparent are related. Again, we would have to know the parents before we could determine the grandparents.

I welcome any inquiries from producers about ensuring excellent results and the processing of samples at our lab.   

For more information, contact:

July Lenek

Project Manager

P.O. Box 274 (Mail)

610 Railway Street

(Courier)

Nelson, BC  Canada 

V1L 5P9

jlenek@wildlifegenetics.ca  www.wildlifegenetics.ca