Plant & Animal Genome VI Conference

P51

SPECIFIC PRIMERS

1. Department of Animal Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada
2. Department of Forest Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada

Microsatellite markers have been found to be abundant, evenly distributed, and high polymorphic in eukaryotic genomes, and microsatellite loci are often conserved among related species. Microsatellite markers have not been developed for the Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica), an important poultry species as well as a frequently used laboratory animal for biomedical research, . In contrast, over 500 pairs of chicken-specific (Gallus gallus) microsatellite primers are available. We screened 48 chicken primer-pairs (from Kit 1 and Kit 2) on Japanese quail DNA. After optimizing the PCR condition for each primer pair, good specific products were obtained in 10 cases (21%) and 8 of which showed polymorphism. Another 18 chicken primer-pairs yielded weak or non-specific products and 20 showed no product. Of the 48 primers tested (21 compounds: 20 perfects: 7 imperfects), both compounds and imperfects had good success rate (29%) whereas only 10% of the perfects yielded cross-species specific products. The results indicate the possible use of chicken-specific primers in the analysis of Japanese quail genome. We thank Hans Cheng for providing the chicken microsatellite primers and Janet Fulton for providing the control chicken DNA.