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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #41815
Title: TURKEY MICROSATELLITE DNA LOCI AMPLIFIED BY CHICKEN SPECIFIC PRIMERS

Author
item LEVIN I - HEBREW UNIV JERUSALEM
item HILLEL J - HEBREW UNIV JERUSALEM
item Cheng, Hans
item BAXTER-JONES C - BRITISH UNITED TURKEYS

Submitted to: Animal Genetics
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/28/1995
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: The major objective of poultry breeders is to select for birds that have desirable productions traits such as increased feed efficiency, higher disease resistance, faster growth, etc. Advances in biotechnology may yield tools that could enhance the rate of gain in breeding selections. One such tool is known as a genetic marker. A genetic marker is a tag that allows one to follow genes. The goal of biotechnology is to identify genetic markers that follow genes of a particular trait. For example, it may be possible to tag a disease resistance gene using a genetic marker and select the individuals in a breeding population with the disease resistance gene by using the genetic marker. In this paper, we describe an initial experiment to determine if genetic markers that have been developed for the chicken can be applied to the turkey. Using 41 different genetic markers developed for the chicken, 13 or approximately one-third of the genetic markers appeared to function when applied to the turkey. These results suggest that a significant fraction of the genetic markers being developed for the chicken could be used as comparable markers for the turkey, thereby, reducing the costs involved in producing turkey specific genetic markers.

Technical Abstract: Forty-one primer pairs complementary to unique DNA sequences flanking chicken (genus Gallus) genomic (TG)n microsatellite repeats were previously designed. These primer pairs were used in the polymerase chain reaction to amplify turkey (genus Meleagris) genomic DNA loci. Results indicated that the majority (90%) of these primer pairs generated amplification products in turkey genomic DNA. Hybridizations using end-labeled (TG)8 as a probe indicated however that only 13 of the 41 primer pairs generated an amplification product that also contained a detectable (TG)n microsatellite repeat when turkey DNA was the template. These results suggest that about one-third of the chicken microsatellite markers can be used as comparable markers for genomic mapping and linkage analysis in the turkey, reducing the costs involved in producing turkey specific microsatellite markers.