Chicken microsatellite primers are not efficient markers for Japanese quail

Domestic fowl or chicken (Gallus gallus) and Japanese quail (Coturnix japon ica) belong to the family Phasianidae. The exchange of marker information b etween chicken and quail is an important step towards the construction of a high-resolution comparative genetic map in Phasianidae, which includes sev eral poultry species of agricultural importance. We tested chicken microsat ellite markers to see if they would be suitable as genetic linkage markers in Japanese quail. Twenty-six per cent (31/120) of chicken primers amplifie d individual loci in Japanese quail and 65% (20/31) of the amplified loci w ere found to be polymorphic. Eleven of the polymorphic loci were excluded a s uninformative because of the lack of amplification in some individuals or high frequency of nonspecific amplification. The sequence information of t he remaining nine loci revealed six of them to contain microsatellites that were nearly identical with those of the orthologous regions in chicken. Fo r these six loci, allele frequencies were estimated in 50 unrelated quails. Although the very few chicken markers that do work well in quail could be used as anchor points for a comparative mapping, most chicken markers are n ot useful for studies in quail. Therefore, more effort should be committed to developing quail-specific markers rather than attempting to adapt chicke n markers for work in quail.