The Domestic BCO2 Allele Buffers Low-Carotenoid Diets in Chickens: Possible Fitness Increase Through Species Hybridization.

ABSTRACT: Domestic animals are adapted to conditions vastly different from those of their wild ancestors, and this is particularly true for their diets. The most numerous of all domestic species, the chicken, originated from the Red Junglefowl (RJF), a native of subtropical forests in Southeast Asia. Surprisingly however, in domestic chicken breeds, a common haplotype of the β-carotene oxygenase 2 (BCO2) gene, which is involved in carotenoid metabolism, is introgressed from a related species, the Gray Junglefowl, and has been under strong selective pressure during domestication. This suggests that a hybridization event may have conferred a fitness advantage on chickens carrying the derived allele. To investigate the possible biological function of the introgressed BCO2 allele in

SUBMITTER: Fallahshahroudi A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6707467 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature