IFM Biologi, AVIAN Behavioural Genomics and Physiology group, Linköping University, SE-58183, Linköping, Sweden.
Mol Ecol. 2014 May;23(9):2275-86. doi: 10.1111/mec.12723. Epub 2014 Apr 9.
Sexual selection and the ornaments that inform such choices have been extensively studied, particularly from a phenotypic perspective. Although more is being revealed about the genetic architecture of sexual ornaments, much still remains to be discovered. The comb of the chicken is one of the most widely recognized sexual ornaments, which has been shown to be correlated with both fecundity and bone allocation. In this study, we use a combination of multiple intercrosses between White Leghorn populations and wild-derived Red Junglefowl to, first, map quantitative trait loci (QTL) for bone allocation and, second, to identify expression QTL that correlate and colocalize with comb mass. These candidate quantitative genes were then assessed for potential pleiotropic effects on bone tissue and fecundity traits. We identify genes that correlate with both relative comb mass and bone traits suggesting a combination of both pleiotropy and linkage mediates gene regulatory variation in these traits.
性选择和能够反映这种选择的装饰物已经得到了广泛的研究，特别是从表型的角度。虽然关于性装饰物的遗传结构有了更多的揭示，但仍有许多有待发现。鸡的鸡冠是最广为人知的性装饰物之一，它与繁殖力和骨骼分配都有相关性。在这项研究中，我们使用了多次怀特莱亨鸡种群与野生红原鸡杂交的组合，首先绘制了骨骼分配的数量性状基因座（QTL）图谱，其次鉴定了与鸡冠质量相关并共定位的表达 QTL。然后，我们评估了这些候选数量基因对骨组织和繁殖力性状的潜在多效性影响。我们发现了与相对鸡冠质量和骨骼性状都相关的基因，这表明在这些性状中，多效性和连锁共同介导了基因调控变异。
