Genetic relationships among West-African taurine or indicine populations and European cattle breeds.

The polymorphism of 16 genetic systems, the 11 known blood group systems in cattle (A, B, C, F, J, L, M, S, Z, R', T') and five blood protein loci (serum albumin and transferrin, erythrocyte haemoglobin, purine nucleoside phosphorylase and phosphoglucomutase) - has been analysed in ten West-African taurine and indicine populations, and submitted to classification methods and correspondence analysis in an attempt to clarify the genetic relationships between these populations. Since 12 loci are common to this study and an earlier one concerning French breeds, the data of both studies have been pooled and analysed by the same methods. The results show a clear separation between zebus (Bos indicus) and taurines (Bos taurus), as well as between African and European taurines. The correspondence analysis highlights the discriminant effect of alleles specific to Zebu (Tf-F, Al-S) or more frequent in Zebu than in taurines (Hb(B)), and that of alleles mainly found in African cattle (F-, C-, CC1-). On the other hand, the methods used could not clearly separate the West-African taurine populations or the European cattle breeds. (C) Inra/Elsevier, Paris.