PCR BASED BOVINE PREIMPLANTATION EMBRYO SEXING - AVOIDING FALSE MALES

Preselection of sex of an offspring in livestock industry has commerci al importance as economic value of each livestock species is different for different sex. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based sexing assay has been applied widely to determine sex of bovine preimplantation em bryos. PCR is a powerful technique having potential to amplify even ii single copy of target DNA. Therefore-PCR-based sexing assay is vulner able to contamination and may give a signal of false male. In this rev iew, the current status of PCR and its application to embryo sexing is being reported. Also critical tips to be kept in mind while setting u p PCR based embryo sexing assay to avoid contamination (hence false ma les) are enumerated.