SNP genotyping (SNP chips, microarrays)

SNP chips enable the genome-wide parallel determination of up to hundreds of thousands of single-nucleotide polymorphism DNA sequence variants (SNPs) of a wide variety of samples. Such high-resolution DNA profiles can be used in parallel for parentage testing as well as for the genotyping of causal variants for genetic defects (such as spider lamb syndrome and microphthalmia) and functional traits (such as scrapie or Maedi-Visna resistance). In addition, genomic inbreeding coefficients of herds and effective population sizes can be estimated. These parameters are a further development of the assessment values determined from pedigree data for the risk level of a population or breed.
Taken together, this technological development opens up a portfolio of genome-based applications for routine SNP genotyping, which also represents a more cost-effective alternative to individual analyses when considered the amount of total information possible.