ANALYSIS OF GENETIC DIVERSITY IN FRENCH C ATTLE BREEDS BY THE USE OF MICROSATELLITES - PRELIMINARY-RESULTS

French cattle breeds were first characterized according to data from m orphological studies. Subsequently, technical advances allowed the use of other polymorphic biochemical characters such as blood groups, ser um proteins or milk proteins. The different breeds could be classified into 4 subsets. At present, the development of molecular biology tech niques has made it possible to analyse polymorphism at the DNA level u sing microsatellites which are numerous and highly polymorphic. This a rticle presents a study on the polymorphism of 20 microsatellites in 1 1 French cattle breeds including representatives of the 4 subsets. The first results obtained with 6 cattle breeds (Brune des Alpes (BU), Ch arolaise (CH), Montbeliarde (MO), Normande (NO), Parthenaise (PA) and Vosgienne (VO)) using-6 microsatellite loci (INRA013, INRA016, INRA035 , INRAO37, INRA040 and ETH131) are described. Differences were observe d in microsatellite allelic frequencies between the different breeds. These prelimary results show that microsatellites are promising tools for phylogenetic studies.