POULTRY GENOME NEWSLETTER 2000,

ISSUE NO. 3, JULY 2000

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Plans already are well underway for PAG-IX (San Diego, Jan. 14-17, 2001 with the Poultry Workshop/NC-168 meeting beginning Saturday evening, Jan. 13). Abstracts for PAG-VIII can be viewed at the PAG website, http://www.intl-pag.org/pag. PAG-IX again will be followed directly by the Agricultural Microbial Genome meeting.

ISAG 2000, the 27^th International Conference on Animal Genetics will be held July 22-26, 2000 at the Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Schedule info is at http://www.cvm.umn.edu/research/isag2000/home.htm. Of particular interest to poultry folks, the Chicken Gene Mapping Workshop meets at 8-11 a.m. on Saturday, July 22 (Alain Vignal, chair), the Comparative Genomics Workshop meets at 1-5 p.m. that same day (Joel Gellin, chair), and the Avian Immunogenetics Workshop meets 10 a.m.-noon, Sunday, July 23 (Karel Hala, chair). Attendees have been warned to expect some animal rights demonstrators outside the conference area, but our hosts are making every effort to insure that the meeting goes smoothly and that the local media receives an accurate picture of the value of animal genetics research. Thanks in advance to Larry Schook, chairperson, and other members of the ISAG Organizing Committee for their efforts.

The XXI World Poultry Congress will be held in conjunction with the Poultry Science Association meeting and the 6th International Symposium on Marek's Disease in Montreal, Canada this August. PSA will begin the evening of Friday, August 18, while the Marek's Disease Symposium will begin Saturday evening and the WPC will officially open Monday evening, August 21 and run through Thursday, August 24. Info can be obtained at http://www.wpc2000.org or by email to info@eventsintl.com.

A very few robot-spotted filter sets (containing about 30,000 of the present 38,000 BACs) are still available for the chicken BAC library constructed at the Texas A&M BAC Center, using UCD 001 Jungle Fowl line as its DNA source (email dodgson@msu.edu). Alternatively, filter sets can be obtained directly from the Texas A&M BAC Center (http://hbz.tamu.edu) at the cost of preparing and sending them. Once your clone of interest is identified by hybridization, individual clones can be obtained at cost from the BAC Center. The BAC Center is still in the process of doubling the library in size, using different restriction enzyme sites, to insure complete coverage of the genome. As noted previously, Martien Groenen's lab has also constructed a BAC library in collaboration with this Center . This library consists of nearly 50,000 BACs (ave. insert, 130 kb). For more information, go to http://www.zod.wau.nl/vf/research/chicken/frame_chicken.html. If you wish to purchase or use this library, either contact the Texas A&M BAC Center (http://hbz.tamu.edu), the Groenen site URL above, or the UK Human Genome Mapping Project Resource Center at http://www.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk which sells filter sets of this library.

Gene primers: (Reminder) Two sets of PCR primer pairs complementary to chicken mRNAs are still available. In each case, a likely primer pair for PCR was derived based on DNA sequence data. See the Tables entitled "Chicken Gene Primers #1 and #2" under "Resources" (scroll down) at http://poultry.mph.msu.edu. Contact: (dodgson@.msu.edu) or (hcheng@.msu.edu).

Microsatellite primers: We're now up to 647 microsatellite primer pairs made available. Information can be found on the Web Page under Resources, and requests made as noted above. As indicated in our last issue, we are now out of stock of kits #1 and #2, and have a very limited (and possibly outdated) amount of kit #3. A streamlined replacement kit that will cover the most polymorphic and evenly distributed markers in kits #1 and #2 (including all of those which are anchor markers on the Groenen et al. Consensus Map, see above) has been designed. Unfortunately, our order for the new kit has been delayed by a patent problem. A representative of the Marshfield Clinic has contacted the poultry and swine coordinators, asking us to pay a considerable licensing fee to the Clinic (based on their patent for dinucleotide primer microsatellite mapping) and to restrict our orders to companies that have also purchased a Marshfield license (Research Genetics and PE). Together, these would greatly increase our costs and reduce the primers we could provide. In addition, there are very restrictive terms in the licensing agreement that they have proposed. The matter is presently under review by MSU and ISU lawyers and intellectual property offices, but this has delayed ordering our replacement kit, and we apologize for this delay. All pre-existing kits remain available, but we will probably soon begin to ask those requesting microsatellite kits to fill out a form which acknowledges your awareness of the Marshfield claim (not that you necessarily agree with it). When ready, this will be a vailable through the web page and/or email addresses above.

For those who haven't heard, NRSP-8 poultry member, Wayne Kuenzel has moved from Maryland to the U. of Arkansas. His new address is Poultry Science Center, U. of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701. Best wishes in your new location, Wayne!

We're always happy to include items of general interest to the poultry genetics community in the Poultry Genome Newsletter. Please email your contributions to us at the addresses below. Please send any items by September 15 to be sure it gets into the next issue.

email: dodgson@msu.edu

email: hcheng@msu.edu