Development and Application of Est-Ssr Markers in Quails

Polymorphism analysis of myogenin gene in meat quail (Coturnix coturnix)

Results demonstrated that in meat quail, three genotypes (AA, BB and AB) were detected at locus A and B in MyoG gene. Locus A is significantly correlated with weight and body length of meat quail (P<0.05). Locus B is significantly correlated with weight, breastbone length and body length of meat quail (P<0.05). The MyoG gene can be used for marker-assisted selection of growth traits in meat quails.

Association analysis of ESR gene polymorphism and carcass traits in egg quails (Coturnix coturnix)

The polymorphism of estrogen receptor (ESR) gene was detected by PCR-RFLP in China yellow, Korean and Beijing white quails and the association between ESR gene polymorphism and carcass traits of egg quails was analyzed. The results showed that there were three genotypes including CC, CT and TT detected in exon 1 and exon 8 of ESR gene in egg quails. The frequencies of CC genotype in exon 1 of ESR gene were the highest in China yellow, Beijing white and Korean quail (0.515, 0.614, 0.723). The highest frequencies of TT genotype in exon 8 of ESR gene were detected in Beijing white and Korean quails (0.618 and 0.540), while the highest frequency of CT genotype was detected in China yellow quail (0.476). As demonstrated in this study, there were significant correlations between exon 1 of ESR gene and body weight, carcass weight, breast muscle weight, heart weight and percentage of leg muscles in egg quails (P<0.05).

Discovery of novel genic-SSR markers from transcriptome dataset of an important non-human primate, Macaca fascicularis

Macaca fascicularis, also known as the cynomolgus macaque, is an important non-human primate animal model used in biomedical research. It is an Old-World primate widely distributed in Southeast Asia and is one of the most abundant macaque species in Malaysia. However, the genetic structure of wild cynomolgus macaque populations in Malaysia has not been thoroughly elucidated. In this study, we developed genic-simple sequence repeat (genic-SSR) markers from an in-house transcriptome dataset generated from the Malaysian cynomolgus macaque via RNA sequencing, and applied these markers on 26 cynomolgus macaque individuals. A collection of 14,751 genic-SSRs were identified, where 13,709 were perfect SSRs. Dinucleotide repeats were the most common repeat motifs with a frequency of 65.05%, followed by trinucleotide repeats (20.55%). Subsequently, we designed 300 pairs of primers based on perfect di- and trinucleotide SSRs, in which 105 SSRs were associated with functional genes. A subset of 30 SSR markers were randomly selected and validated, yielding 19 polymorphic markers with an average polymorphism information content value of 0.431. The development of genic-SSR markers in this study is indeed timely to provide useful markers for functional and population genetic studies of the cynomolgus macaque and other related non-human primate species.