Amplified fragment length polymorphism: an adept technique for genome mapping, genetic differentiation, and intraspecific variation in protozoan parasites

Chinese Domestic Ducks Evolved from Mallard Duck (Anas platyrhynchos) and Spot-Billed Duck (A. zonorhyncha)

China has a rich genetic resource in its 34 domestic duck breeds. In order to detect the genetic diversity and explore the origin of these indigenous duck populations, the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region was sequenced and analyzed for 208 individual ducks, including 22 domestic breeds, wild Mallards ducks, Eastern spot-billed ducks, White Muscovy ducks, and Black Muscovy ducks. The haplotype diversity (Hd) was 0.653 and the average nucleotide diversity (Pi) was 0.005, indicating moderate genetic diversity. Sixty haplotypes were detected, and the maximum-likelihood (ML) phylogenetic tree and median-joining (MJ) network were generated from the sequence analyses. In this study, haplotypes from the Mallard duck (Anas platyrhynchos) were detected in most of the Chinese domestic duck breeds. In addition, the Eastern spot-billed duck (A. zonorhyncha) H8 haplotype was detected in two duck breeds. Only two haplotypes were found in Muscovy ducks, suggesting low genetic diversity within this population. The sequence and haplotype analyses revealed that both A. platyrhynchos and A. zonorhyncha contributed to the evolution of domestic ducks in China.

Extending GelJ for interoperability: Filling the gap in the bioinformatics resources for population genetics analysis with dominant markers

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

The manual transformation of DNA fingerprints of dominant markers into the input of tools for population genetics analysis is a time-consuming and error-prone task; especially when the researcher deals with a large number of samples. In addition, when the researcher needs to use several tools for population genetics analysis, the situation worsens due to the incompatibility of data-formats across tools. The goal of this work consists in automating, from banding patterns of gel images, the input-generation for the great diversity of tools devoted to population genetics analysis.

METHODS

After a thorough analysis of tools for population genetics analysis with dominant markers, and tools for working with phylogenetic trees; we have detected the input requirements of those systems. In the case of programs devoted to phylogenetic trees, the Newick and Nexus formats are widely employed; whereas, each population genetics analysis tool uses its own specific format. In order to handle such a diversity of formats in the latter case, we have developed a new XML format, called PopXML, that takes into account the variety of information required by each population genetics analysis tool. Moreover, the acquired knowledge has been incorporated into the pipeline of the GelJ system - a tool for analysing DNA fingerprint gel images - to reach our automatisation goal.

RESULTS

We have implemented, in the GelJ system, a pipeline that automatically generates, from gel banding patterns, the input of tools for population genetics analysis and phylogenetic trees. Such a pipeline has been employed to successfully generate, from thousands of banding patterns, the input of 29 population genetics analysis tools and 32 tools for managing phylogenetic trees.

CONCLUSIONS

GelJ has become the first tool that fills the gap between gel image processing software and population genetics analysis with dominant markers, phylogenetic reconstruction, and tree editing software. This has been achieved by automating the process of generating the input for the latter software from gel banding patterns processed by GelJ.