Analysis of Illumina BovineSNP50 BeadChip data in different Italian cattle breeds to identify useful markers for breed authentication of dairy and beef products

The identification of the breed of origin of cattle derived products has recently assumed particular relevance since the increasing interest in marketing mono-breed labelled cheese and beef. These products are usually sold at a higher price creating financial incentives to substituting them with lower value products coming from undifferentiated or common breeds or crossbred animals. Frauds can damage these valuable niche markets that, indirectly, may help to preserve genetic diversity through the economic incentive on raising local breeds, derived by the high value products, that are usually less productive. DNA analysis can help to identify fraudulent behaviour as we already demonstrated f…