Microarray analysis of differential gene expression in the liver of lean and fat chickens.

Excessive adiposity has become a major drawback in meat-type chicken production. However, few studies were conducted to analyze the liver expression of genes involved in pathways and mechanisms leading to adiposity. A previous study performed by differential display on RNAs extracted from chicken livers from lean and fat lines allowed us to isolate cDNA products of genes with putative differential expression.

A gene-based radiation hybrid map of chicken microchromosome 14: comparison to human and alignment to the assembled chicken sequence.

We present a gene-based RH map of the chicken microchromosome GGA14, known to have synteny conservations with human chromosomal regions HSA16p13.3 and HSA17p11.2.

Genetic linkage and expression analysis of SREBP and lipogenic genes in fat and lean chicken.

To identify the genes directly responsible, through DNA polymorphism, for the difference in fatness observed between a lean and a fat chicken line, we studied five genes (ACL, ACC, FAS, ME, SCD1) encoding key enzymes involved in liver fatty acid synthesis and secretion. Genetic linkage was tested between polymorphic sites in the genes and the fatness trait segregating in an F2 design obtained by inter-crossing the two fat and lean lines. Despite a confirmation of a higher mRNA level in the fat birds, no genetic linkage of the gene alleles with the phenotype could be found.