Plant & Animal Genome VI Conference

P98

APPLYING AFLP TO THE CHICKEN REFERENCE LINKAGE MAP

1. Department of Microbiology, Michigan State University, Giltner Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824
2. USDA-ARS, Avian Disease and Oncology Laboratory, 3606 E. Mount Hope Rd., East Lansing, MI 48823

The usefulness of AFLP markers to expand the chicken genome reference linkage map has been examined. A subset (52 BC animals) of the East Lansing reference family (400 backcross Jungle Fowl by White Leghorn progeny) was used to assign over 100 AFLP, to date, to the reference linkage map. AFLP were identified between parental DNAs and scored among backcross progeny using fluorescently labeled primers. To date, EcoRI and TaqI have been used as the primary pair of AFLP enzymes. AFLP markers predominantly mapped to the chicken macrochromosomes (chromosomes 1-8). Additionally, several AFLP mapped to smaller linkage groups, at least some of which are likely to represent chicken microchromosomes. Some AFLP were also found on the Z and W sex chromosomes, and a few remain unlinked. Generally, AFLP shared a similar distribution with microsatellites and other markers already on the reference map. However, for some chromosomes there appears to be a slightly higher density of AFLP in telomeric regions. The limited number of backcross animals surveyed with both AFLP and other markers limits the precision with which AFLP can presently be assigned, however, the ease of AFLP mapping holds the potential for mapping on the full reference population. Future studies will be focused on expanding the usefulness of AFLP by testing further enzyme combinations, examining the polymorphic content of AFLP in other resource populations, and applying methods to clone AFLP bands to convert them to STS polymorphisms.