Current situation in the gene bank of animal genetic resources in Slovakia

Abstract

In the last fifty years, there was a significant decrease in the number of animals in the Slovak Republic, and in some species an original, (native) autochthonous breeds completely disappeared. From the last update (at the end of 2011) statuses of animal breeds in the Slovak Republic, it is obvious that three breeds of cattle and two breeds of pig are subjected to extinction. The situation with animal genetic resources in the Slovak Republic is not satisfactory due to the fact that semen doses, stored in the gene bank, are originated only from several, but not from all Slovak breeds. In particular, from the cattle breeds there are Slovak Pinzgau and Slovak Spotted, from rabbit breeds – Nitra rabbit, Zobor rabbit and Holic rabbit and from chicken breed – Oravka. In the near future we plan to store embryos from Slovak cattle, sheep and rabbit breeds. Stem cells appear to be a perspective tool for preservation of endangered species (breeds). Moreover, we also collect for storage stem cells from various sources (bone marrow, amniotic fluid, blood and fat tissues) of different Slovak animal breeds. For this reason animal genetic resource ex situ (gene bank) is important for solution of problems of animal genetic resource in Slovakia.