Proceedings of the National Institute of Ecology of the Republic of Korea

National Institute of Ecology (국립생태원)
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Non-Invasive Sex Determination of Asiatic Black Bear (Ursus thibetanus) via Sex-Specific Amplification of the Amelogenin Gene

  • Received : 2023.09.25
  • Accepted : 2023.10.17
  • Published : 2023.11.01
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Abstract

The Asiatic black bear, Ursus thibetanus, is among the most threatened or endangered species in Asia. For its conservation and management, sex identification of U. thibetanus using non-invasive samples (e.g., hair and/or feces) is potentially valuable. In this study, a non-invasive molecular method for sex identification of U. thibetanus samples collected from various countries was first utilized, and it was based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of the amelogenin gene via PCRs. Thirty-three bear DNA samples, extracted not only from blood (n=9) but also from hair (n=18) and feces (n=6), were used. We performed sex-specific PCR amplifications of the amelogenin gene using a primer set, SE47 and SE48. The primer set could successfully amplify a single X-specific band for females and both X- and Y-specific bands for males from all blood (100%) and hair (100%) samples. In addition, the primer set could distinguish the sex of bears in four out of a total of six fecal samples (approximately 67%). This study's findings suggest that this molecular method can be applied to sex identification of Asiatic black bears from various Asian regions using non-invasive samples, such as hair and feces.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This work was partially supported by the National Institute of Ecology, funded by the Ministry of Environment (MOE) of the Republic of Korea (No. NIE-B-2023-18). It was also supported in part by the Research Institute for Veterinary Science and the Brain Korea 21 Program for Veterinary Science, Seoul National University. We thank Professor H. Lee for helping in conducting this experiment. We also thank the many field surveyors for collecting the blood, hair, and fecal samples of bears.

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