Chicken single nucleotide polymorphism identification and selection for genetic mapping

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) are the ideal markers for high-density genome wide mapping. A total of 327,000 expressed sequence tag (EST) sequences, obtained from the ChickEST project, were examined for the presence of SNP. A total of 32,268 potential chicken SNP were identified and stored in a customized Microsoft Access database and evaluated in silico for their usability for a high-density genetic map. Based on a minimum of 3 for the minor allele occurrence and a minimum of 30%, for the minor allele frequency, 5,332 reliable SNP were selected, of which both SNP alleles were present in the database at a high frequency. To test the usefulness of the in silico SNP identification, 24 SNP affecting a Bg/II site were used for a genotyping study. A functional PCR assay could be designed for 21 of the 24 SNP. It was possible to validate 90% of this marker subset (21 SNP) by Bg/II restriction analysis. The high percentage of validated markers demonstrates the reliability of the 5,332 chicken SNP markers. Furthermore, the limited number of genomic DNA samples necessary to validate 90% of the SNP markers confirmed the prediction of the high frequency at which both alleles of the selected SNP were present in the tested chicken populations.