Genetic mapping of the novel congenital loco locus on chromosome Z in Silkie Fowl chickens

ABSTRACT

1. ‘Congenital loco’ is a disorder in birds expressed at hatching, and the primary symptom is dorsal backward bending of the neck. It is a recessive disease caused by a mutation in a specific genetic locus. The following study identified a novel locus associated with congenital loco in Silkie Fowl chickens.

2. Normal and congenital loco-affected Silkie Fowl chicks exhibited no differences in the frequencies of markers on chromosome 12 adjacent to the congenital loco locus reported in a previous study in Rhode Island Red chickens. Sex determination of congenital loco-affected chicks revealed that they were female only.

3. Bulked segregant analyses using next-generation sequencing narrowed the causative region of congenital loco to approximately 3.3 Mb between bases 9,569,012 and 12,863,792 on chromosome Z.

KEYWORDS:

• Congenital loco
• bulked segregant analysis
• gene mapping
• sex linked diseases
• poultry

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

All data included in this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00071668.2023.2297806.