A Consensus Linkage Map of the Chicken Genome
- Martien A.M. Groenen1,15,
- Hans H. Cheng2,
- Nat Bumstead3,
- Bernard F. Benkel4,
- W. Elwood Briles5,
- Terry Burke6,
- Dave W. Burt7,
- Lyman B. Crittenden8,
- Jerry Dodgson8,
- Jossi Hillel9,
- Sue Lamont10,
- Abel Ponce de Leon11,
- Morris Soller12,
- Hideaki Takahashi13, and
- Alain Vignal14
- 1Animal Breeding and Genetics Group, Wageningen Institute of Animal Sciences, Wageningen University, 6709 PG Wageningen, The Netherlands; 2United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Avian Disease and Oncology Laboratory, East Lansing, Michigan 48823 USA; 3Molecular Biology, Institute for Animal Health, Compton Laboratory, Compton, Berkshire RG20 7NN, UK; 4Agriculture and Agro-Food Canada, Center for Food and Animal Research, Ottawa KIA 0C6, Canada; 5Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois 60115 USA; 6Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK; 7Department of Molecular Biology, Roslin Institute (Edinburgh), Roslin, Midlothian EH25 9PS, UK; 8Michigan State University, Department of Microbiology, East Lansing, Michigan 48823 USA; 9Department of Genetics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot 76100, Israel; 10Department of Animal Science, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011-3150 USA ; 11Department of Animal Science, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota 55108 USA; 12Department of Genetics, Silberman Life Science Institute, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 91904 Israel; 13Department of Genetic Resources 1, National Institute of Agrobiological Resources, Kannondai, Tsukuba 305-8602, Japan; 14Institute National de la Recherche Agronomique, Genetique Animale, Laboratoire de Genetique Cellulaire, 31326 Castanet-Tolosan, France
Abstract
A consensus linkage map has been developed in the chicken that combines all of the genotyping data from the three available chicken mapping populations. Genotyping data were contributed by the laboratories that have been using the East Lansing and Compton reference populations and from the Animal Breeding and Genetics Group of the Wageningen University using the Wageningen/Euribrid population. The resulting linkage map of the chicken genome contains 1889 loci. A framework map is presented that contains 480 loci ordered on 50 linkage groups. Framework loci are defined as loci whose order relative to one another is supported by odds greater then 3. The possible positions of the remaining 1409 loci are indicated relative to these framework loci. The total map spans 3800 cM, which is considerably larger than previous estimates for the chicken genome. Furthermore, although the physical size of the chicken genome is threefold smaller then that of mammals, its genetic map is comparable in size to that of most mammals. The map contains 350 markers within expressed sequences, 235 of which represent identified genes or sequences that have significant sequence identity to known genes. This improves the contribution of the chicken linkage map to comparative gene mapping considerably and clearly shows the conservation of large syntenic regions between the human and chicken genomes. The compact physical size of the chicken genome, combined with the large size of its genetic map and the observed degree of conserved synteny, makes the chicken a valuable model organism in the genomics as well as the postgenomics era. The linkage maps, the two-point lod scores, and additional information about the loci are available at web sites in Wageningen (http://www.zod.wau.nl/vf/research/chicken/frame_chicken.html) and East Lansing (http://poultry.mph.msu.edu/).
Footnotes
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↵15 Corresponding author.
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E-MAIL martien.groenen{at}alg.vf.wau.nl; FAX (0031) 317 483929.
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- Received September 22, 1999.
- Accepted November 16, 1999.
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
