Extensive intragenic recombination and patterns of linkage disequilibrium at the CSN3 locus in European rabbit

Genetics Selection Evolution

Nuno Ferrand¹  Miguel Carneiro² 

[1] CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Campus Agrário de Vairão, 4485-661 Vairão;Departamento de Zoologia e Antropologia, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto, 4099-002 Porto, Portugal

关键词: linkage disequilibrium;    intragenic recombination;    indel polymorphism;    CSN3 gene;    European rabbit;   

Others  :  1094001
DOI  :  10.1186/1297-9686-39-3-341

 received in 2006-08-30, accepted in 2006-11-20,  发布年份 2007

【 摘 要 】

Kappa-casein (CSN3) plays an important role in stabilising the Ca-sensitive caseins in the micelle. The European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) CSN3 has previously been shown to possess two alleles (A and B), which differ deeply in their intronic regions (indels of 100 and 1550 nucleotides in introns 1 and 4, respectively). Furthermore, a correlation between several reproductive performance traits and the different alleles was described. However, all these data were exclusively collected in rabbit domestic breeds, preventing a deeper understanding of the extensive polymorphism observed in the CSN3 gene. Additionally, the techniques available for the typing of both indel polymorphisms were until now not suitable for large-scale studies. In this report, we describe a simple, PCR-based typing method to distinguish rabbit CSN3 alleles. We analyse both ancient wild rabbit populations from the Iberian Peninsula and France, and the more recently derived English wild rabbits and domestic stocks. A new allele (C) showing another major indel (250 bp) in intron 1 was found, but exclusively detected in Iberian wild rabbits. In addition, our survey revealed the occurrence of new haplotypes in wild populations, suggesting that intragenic recombination is important in creating genetic diversity at this locus. This easy and low cost single-step PCR-based method results in an improvement over previous described techniques, can be easily set up in a routine molecular laboratory and would probably be a valuable tool in the management of rabbit domestic breeds.

【 授权许可】

   
2007 INRA, EDP Sciences