PROTEIN POLYMORPHISMS AND GENETIC-RELATIONSHIPS IN MOURO IN RELATION TO OTHER BREEDS OF PIGS REARED IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

Fourteen protein systems encoded by 15 structural loci were used to in vestigate genetic variability in a population of the Mouro swine breed reared in Southern Brazil. The degree of genetic variability obtained for the Mouro animals (<(He)over bar> = 0.130) was similar to those e stimated for other breeds (Landrace, <(He)over bar> = 0.116; Large Whi te, <(He)over bar> = 0.119; Duroc, <(He)over bar> = 0.095) reared in t he same region. This value is also close to those computed for wild pi g populations. The gene frequencies at the polymorphic loci were emplo yed to evaluate the usefulness of these systems for paternity identifi cation. The combined probabilities of paternity exclusion were estimat ed at 58% for Mouro swine. Analysis of genetic relationships revealed that Mouro and Large White samples were the mast similar (D = 0.058) a nd that the Duroc animals were the most dissimilar (D = 0.107). These results suggest that cross-breeding has occurred between Mouro and Lar ge White pigs in Brazil.