Why are Beijing ducks so big?

Title: An Intercross people study reveals genes associated with body size and plumage color in ducks
Journal:
Zhengkui Zhou et al
Published: 2018/07/17
digital identification number: 10 .1038/s41467-018-04868-4
Original link:
WeChat Link:An analysis published in nature-newsletter
found and
. The findings shed light on the genetic basis of some of the characteristics that Beijing ducks have chosen over the past few hundred years.the F2 hybrid duck in the Beijing Duck Laboratory. Photo credit: Dr. Yu Jiang
the green-headed duck was domesticated in central China in 500 D.C. and has since formed a variety of local duck species. Among them,
, the researchers had not previously found genetic changes associated with fine character such as Beijing duck white feathers and fast growth.-headed duck at the San Diego Zoo. Photo credit: Dr. Yu Jiang
Hou Aquatic of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Jiang Yu of Northwestern University of Agriculture, Forgology and Technology and colleagues compared the genomes of 40 green-headed ducks, 36 local ducks from 12 different species (including Shaoxing ducks and high-post ducks) and 30 Beijing ducks, and found that after selecting the signals, the researchers hybridized the green-headed ducks with Beijing ducks and bred 1,026 ducks.
through the study of these hybrid ducks,
. The researchers found that a mutation in a gene called MITF associated with white feathers, and a separate mutation, may have caused the continued expression of the IGF2BP1 gene after birth, as well as an eventual increase in meat production.genetic analysis related to the size of ducks in Beijing. Photo credit: Zhou
, etc. Abstract: Comparative people genomics offers an opportunity to discover the signatures of the people selection when animal domestication, however, their function can be directly revealed. We discover the selection signatures using genome-wide comparisons among 40 mallards, 36 indigenous-breed ducks, and 30 Pekin ducks. Then, the phenotypes are fine-mapped based on resequencing of 1026 ducks from an F2 segregating population generated by wild × domestic crosses. Interestingly, the two key economic traits of Pekin duck are associated with two selective sweeps with fixed mutations. A novel intronic insertion most possibly leads to a splicing change in MITF accounted for white duck down feathers. And a putative long-distance regulatory mutation causes continuous expression of the IGF2BP1 gene after birth which increases body size by 15% and feed efficiency by 6%. This study provides new insights into genotype–phenotype associations in animal research and constitutes a promising resource on economically important genes in fowl.