Y-chromosomal markers for the European brown hare (Lepus europaeus, Pallas 1778)

Studies on demographic population history and gene flow among populations often rely exclusively on matrilinearly inherited mitochondrial DNA markers. However, by excluding patrilines, such approach introduces an analytical bias into the study. To overcome this bias, we established a set of ten Y-chromosomal markers for the European brown hare (Lepus europaeus), which comprises of three overlapping fragments spanning over the sex-determining region Y, five microsatellite loci (LeMS-Y), and two introns of the Y-linked zinc finger protein (LeZFY). Besides the generation of male specific fragments, both the ZFY and the LeMS-Y01 primer pairs also generated amplification products in females, which are visible in standard agarose gels. These polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products were easily distinguishable from the Y-specific amplicons and thus can function as internal positive PCR control in molecular sexing.