Genetics of Interactive Behavior in Silver Foxes (Vulpes vulpes).

Individuals involved in a social interaction exhibit different behavioral traits that, in combination, form the individual's behavioral responses. Selectively bred strains of silver foxes (Vulpes vulpes) demonstrate markedly different behaviors in their response to humans. To identify the genetic basis of these behavioral differences we constructed a large F population including 537 individuals by cross-breeding tame and aggressive fox strains.

Genotyping-By-Sequencing (GBS) Detects Genetic Structure and Confirms Behavioral QTL in Tame and Aggressive Foxes (Vulpes vulpes).

The silver fox (Vulpes vulpes) offers a novel model for studying the genetics of social behavior and animal domestication. Selection of foxes, separately, for tame and for aggressive behavior has yielded two strains with markedly different, genetically determined, behavioral phenotypes. Tame strain foxes are eager to establish human contact while foxes from the aggressive strain are aggressive and difficult to handle.

Genetics of behavior in the silver fox.

The silver fox provides a rich resource for investigating the genetics of behavior, with strains developed by intensely selective breeding that display markedly different behavioral phenotypes. Until recently, however, the tools for conducting molecular genetic investigations in this species were very limited. In this review, the history of development of this resource and the tools to exploit it are described.

Sequence comparison of prefrontal cortical brain transcriptome from a tame and an aggressive silver fox (Vulpes vulpes).

Background: Two strains of the silver fox (Vulpes vulpes), with markedly different behavioral phenotypes, have been developed by long-term selection for behavior. Foxes from the tame strain exhibit friendly behavior towards humans, paralleling the sociability of canine puppies, whereas foxes from the aggressive strain are defensive and exhibit aggression to humans. To understand the genetic differences underlying these behavioral phenotypes fox-specific genomic resources are needed.

On the origin of a domesticated species: Identifying the parent population of Russian silver foxes (Vulpes vulpes).

The foxes at Novosibirsk, Russia, are the only population of domesticated foxes in the world. These domesticated foxes originated from farm-bred silver foxes (Vulpes vulpes), whose genetic source is unknown. In this study we examined the origin of the domesticated strain of foxes and two other farm-bred fox populations (aggressive and unselected) maintained in Novosibirsk.

Mapping Loci for fox domestication: deconstruction/reconstruction of a behavioral phenotype.

During the second part of the twentieth century, Belyaev selected tame and aggressive foxes (Vulpes vulpes), in an effort known as the "farm-fox experiment", to recapitulate the process of animal domestication. Using these tame and aggressive foxes as founders of segregant backcross and intercross populations we have employed interval mapping to identify a locus for tame behavior on fox chromosome VVU12. This locus is orthologous to, and therefore validates, a genomic region recently implicated in canine domestication.

Chromosomal mapping of canine-derived BAC clones to the red fox and American mink genomes.

High-quality sequencing of the dog (Canis lupus familiaris) genome has enabled enormous progress in genetic mapping of canine phenotypic variation. The red fox (Vulpes vulpes), another canid species, also exhibits a wide range of variation in coat color, morphology, and behavior. Although the fox genome has not yet been sequenced, canine genomic resources have been used to construct a meiotic linkage map of the red fox genome and begin genetic mapping in foxes.

A meiotic linkage map of the silver fox, aligned and compared to the canine genome.

A meiotic linkage map is essential for mapping traits of interest and is often the first step toward understanding a cryptic genome. Specific strains of silver fox (a variant of the red fox, Vulpes vulpes), which segregate behavioral and morphological phenotypes, create a need for such a map. One such strain, selected for docility, exhibits friendly dog-like responses to humans, in contrast to another strain selected for aggression.

Dasheng: a recently amplified nonautonomous long terminal repeat element that is a major component of pericentromeric regions in rice.

A new and unusual family of LTR elements, Dasheng, has been discovered in the genome of Oryza sativa following database searches of approximately 100 Mb of rice genomic sequence and 78 Mb of BAC-end sequence information. With all of the cis-elements but none of the coding domains normally associated with retrotransposons (e.g.

Computational and experimental analysis of microsatellites in rice (Oryza sativa L.): frequency, length variation, transposon associations, and genetic marker potential.

A total of 57.8 Mb of publicly available rice (Oryza sativa L.) DNA sequence was searched to determine the frequency and distribution of different simple sequence repeats (SSRs) in the genome.

Microsatellite marker development, mapping and applications in rice genetics and breeding.

Microsatellites are simple, tandemly repeated di- to tetra-nucleotide sequence motifs flanked by unique sequences. They are valuable as genetic markers because they are co-dominant, detect high levels of allelic diversity, and are easily and economically assayed by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Results from screening a rice genomic library suggest that there are an estimated 5700-10,000 microsatellites in rice, with the relative frequency of different repeats decreasing with increasing size of the motif.