|Suchyta, Steve - MICHIGAN STATE UNIV|
|Burnside, Joan - UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE|
|Dodgson, Jerry - MICHIGAN STATE UNIV|
Submitted to: Animal Genetics
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: December 11, 2000
Publication Date: N/A
Interpretive Summary: Genetic maps are the basic tools for identifying genes of agricultural importance. Due to evolutionary conservation, the genes found on a chromosome of one organism are often together on a chromosome in another organism. Thus, although a gene is initially located in one organism, its location can be inferred in another. This paper describes the extent of conservation between three human chromosomes and the corresponding counterparts in the chicken. As the human genome was recently sequenced, through comparative mapping, the chicken map is greatly enhanced as we have a good idea of where specific genes can be found in the chicken genome. For agriculturally important genes, the location can be used to breed superior chickens more easily, which results in cheaper and safer poultry products.
Technical Abstract: Comparative mapping has been performed between the chicken and human genomes, focused primarily in regions corresponding to human chromosomes 1, 4, and 9. Segments of chicken orthologues of selected human genes were amplified from parental DNA of the East Lansing backcross reference population, and the two parental alleles were sequenced. In about 80% of the genes tested, sequence polymorphism was identified between reference population parental DNAs. The polymorphism was used to design allele- specific primers with which to genotype the backcross panel and place genes on the chicken linkage map. Thirty seven genes were mapped which confirmed the surprisingly high level of conserved synteny between orthologous chicken and human genes. In several cases the order of genes in conserved syntenic groups differs between the two genomes, suggesting that there may have been more frequent intrachromosomal inversions as compared to interchromosomal translocations during the separate evolution of avian and mammalian genomes.