Sex determining from scats ? - (Sep/22/2015 )

Hi !

I try to figure out how to do sexing from canids scats (arctic fox). I just want to extract some DNA from these fecal samples and quickly know the sex of the individual, no more.

Any ideas? 

I was thinking about isolate the Y chromosome...

Thanks for helping :-)

- Do -

To test for sex in mammals the SYR gene is routinely used. It is located on the Y chromosome and therefore a positive reaction will confirm male DNA in a faecal samples. The only thing to watch out for is diet of the target species (i.e. arctic fox are carnivores). If they consume mammals in their diet the DNA from their diet may yield false positives. You would need to design or find a canid specific primer set.

It would also be susceptible to false negatives - if an individual PCR fails you won't know unless you have a control for that individual sample. Also absence of a sry positive would indicate female - but only by deduction, you should have a test to ensure that the X is present too.

I strongly agree that you should amplify an X gene as well.  That way, you can compare expression levels, which will be much more robust than a single sry gene measurement.