ARS | Publication request: Comprehensive Identification Of Specific Genes Controlling Complex Traits Through A Genome-Wide Screen for Cis-Acting Regulatory Elements

Submitted to: World Congress of Genetics Applied in Livestock Production
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: August 1, 2010
Publication Date: August 1, 2010
Citation: MacEachern, S., Muir, W.M., Crosby, S., Cheng, H.H. 2010. Comprehensive Identification Of Specific Genes Controlling Complex Traits Through A Genome-Wide Screen for Cis-Acting Regulatory Elements - An Example Using Marek's Disease [abstract]. In: Proceedings of World Congress of Genetics Applied in Livestock Production. Lecture on Functional genomics and systems biology, August 1-6, 2010, Leipzig, Germany. Paper No. 0213. available at http://www.kongressband.de/wcgalp2010/assets/pdf/0213.pdf.

Technical Abstract: The comprehensive identification of genes underlying phenotypic variation of complex traits remains a major challenge. Most genome-wide screens lack sufficient resolving power as they typically depend on linkage. An alternate method is to screen for allele-specific expression (ASE), a simple yet powerful approach, where the expression of each gene allele is compared within an RNA sample. When the expression of the alleles is not equal, then one can unequivocally declare ASE and the presence of a polymorphic cis-acting (genetic) element for that gene as LD is confined to the transcriptional unit. Response to Marek’s disease virus (MDV) inflection in chickens are presented and clearly demonstrate that ASE is an efficient method to identify potentially all or most of the genes for this complex trait.