Genetical Genomics of Tonic Immobility in the Chicken.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Fogelholm J
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6562468 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Genetical Genomics of Tonic Immobility in the Chicken.
Fogelholm Jesper J Inkabi Samuel S Höglund Andrey A Abbey-Lee Robin R Johnsson Martin M Jensen Per P Henriksen Rie R Wright Dominic D
Genes 20190507 5
Identifying the molecular mechanisms of animal behaviour is an enduring goal for researchers. Gaining insight into these mechanisms enables us to gain a greater understanding of behaviour and their genetic control. In this paper, we perform Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) mapping of tonic immobility behaviour in an advanced intercross line between wild and domestic chickens. Genes located within the QTL interval were further investigated using global expression QTL (eQTL) mapping from hypothalamus ...[more]
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Project description:IntroductionTonic immobility (TI) is fear-induced freezing that animals may undergo when confronted by a threat. It is principally observed in prey species as defence mechanisms. In our preliminary research, we detected large inter-individual variations in the frequency and duration of freezing behavior among newly hatched domestic chicks (Gallus gallus). In this study we aim to identify the copy number variations (CNVs) in the genome of chicks as genetic candidates that underlie the behavioral plasticity to fearful stimuli.MethodsA total of 110 domestic chicks were used for an association study between TI responses and copy number polymorphisms. Array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) was conducted between chicks with high and low TI scores using an Agilent 4 × 180 custom microarray. We specifically focused on 3 genomic regions (>60 Mb) of chromosome 1 where previous quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis showed significant F-values for fearful responses.ResultsACGH successfully detected short CNVs within the regions overlapping 3 QTL peaks. Eleven of these identified loci were validated by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) as copy number polymorphisms. Although there wkas no significant p value in the correlation analysis between TI scores and the relative copy number within each breed, several CNV loci showed significant differences in the relative copy number between 2 breeds of chicken (White Leghorn and Nagoya) which had different quantitative characteristics of fear-induced responses.ConclusionOur data shows the potential CNVs that may be responsible for innate fear response in domestic chicks.
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