Project description:The genetic foundation of chicken tail feather color is not very well studied to date, though that of body feather color is extensively explored. In the present study, we used a synthetic chicken dwarf line (DW), which was originated from the hybrids between a black tail chicken breed, Rhode Island Red (RIR) and a white tail breed, Dwarf Layer (DL), to understand the genetic rules of the white/black tail color. The DW line still contain the individuals with black or white tails, even if the body feather are predominantly red, after more than ten generation of self-crossing and being selected for the body feather color. We firstly performed four crosses using the DW line chickens including black tail male to female, reciprocal crosses between the black and white, and white male to female to elucidate the inheritance pattern of the white/black tail. We found that (i) the white/black tail feather colors are independent of body feather color and (ii) the phenotype are autosomal simple trait and (iii) the white are dominant to the black in the DW lines. Furtherly, we performed a genome-wide association (GWA) analysis to determine the candidate genomic regions underlying the tail feather color by using black tail chickens from the RIR and DW chickens and white individuals from DW lines.
Project description:An ultra-high density accurate linkage map for a set of maize RILs was constructed using a GBS strategy. This map will facilitate identification of genes and exploration of QTL for complex architecture in maize. It will also be helpful for further research into the mechanisms that control complex architecture while also providing a basis for marker-assisted selection
Project description:Transcriptional profiling of the jejunum mucosa with 1.5 fold-change reporter genes in comparing control black-boned chickens under normal temperature (NT) conditon with heat-stress treated black-boned chickens under high temperature (HT) condition. Goal was to determine the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in co-family black-boned chickens exposure to heat stress based on global chicken gene expression.