GENOME

NEWSLETTER

Issue No. 4

October, 1996

*PLANT AND ANIMAL GENOME V (PAG-V)/NAGRP/NC-168*

January12-16, 1997, San Diego, CA.

As noted previously, the next NAGRP meeting will be held January 12-16, 1997 at the Town & Country Hotel (1-800-772-8527) in San Diego as part of the Plant and Animal Genome V (PAG-V) meeting. NC-168 Station Reports and the Business Meeting (and the Poultry Subcommittee of NRSP-8) will occur on Sunday, January 12 as a preliminary workshop of PAG-V (the agenda is being prepared by Jim Bitgood). PAG-V will include Plenary Sessions in areas such as New Technologies, QTLs, Gene Discovery and Characterization, Comparative Map Based Analysis, Gene and Chromosome Organization, and Genome Diversity. Poster Sessions and the combined NRSP-8 (NAGRP) Business Meeting will also be included. Advance registration will be $325 ($100 for predoctoral students), and the hotel room rate will be $75.00 plus tax (single or double occupancy). All administrative questions, including requests for the registration brochure, should be directed to Scherago International, Inc.; 212-643-1750; email pag5@scherago.com. Abstract submission deadline is Nov. 4, 1996. Abstracts should be submitted on-line at http://probe/nalusda.gov:8000, which has pointers to view abstracts from PG-IV and to the preliminary conference agenda. Note: Some Poultry Coordination funds will be available to assist with travel costs to PAG-V, especially for those NAGRP or NC-168 Technical Committee members who don't have or can't access Experiment Station travel support. Contact Jerry Dodgson at 22314jbd@msu.edu, if interested.

*ONLY 50 WRITING DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE NC-168 RENEWAL IS DUE*

The next NC-168 project renewal is due in Don Layman's office on Nov. 25, 1996. Drafts of Objectives 1 to 3 have been circulated to participants and are due in final form in Sue Lamont's office by October 15. Ed Smith is in charge of writing up the review of the previous project accomplishments, and the "Objective Chairpersons" are: Jerry Dodgson (Obj. 1), Doug Foster (Obj. 2) and Bill Muir (Obj. 3). Those involved in Objective 1 include Cheng, G. Smith, Okimoto, M. Miller, Delany, Emara, Lamont, Kuenzel, Wong, Ponce de Leon, Dodgson, Foster, Ed Smith, Bitgood and Gibbins. Objective 1 is to: Utilize modern molecular and breeding technologies to identify, locate, isolate and characterize poultry genes of economic importance. Objective 2 is to: Develop methods for locating new genetic variation in poultry by gene transfer and chromosome alteration. Present members of Objective 2 are Foster, Salter, Dodgson, Lamont, Gibbins, Okimoto, and Petitte. Objective 3 is to: Develop, compare and integrate emerging technologies with classical quantitative genetics for improvement of economic traits in poultry. Those in Objective 3 include Muir, Cheng, Grossman, Lamont, Nestor and Velleman.

*ISAG* Roger Vallejo represented the Coordinators at the 25th International Society of Animal Genetics meeting in Tours, France, and the associated 3rd Poultry Genome Workshop, organized by David Burt. Excellent progress reports were presented by a number of poultry gene mappers (18 oral reports and 42 abstracts). At the Workshop it was decided that all marker loci placed on the East Lansing reference map will be confidential for 3 months. Every 3 months, marker owners will be asked if they want the locus to remain confidential. No response will be taken to indicate that the marker can become public. The next International Poultry Genome Workshop will be in conjunction with the ISAG Meeting in 1998 in Auckland, New Zealand. The 1996-1998 Workshop Committee consists of M. Groenen (Chair), D.W. Burt, M. Tixier-Boichard, H. Cheng, N. Bumstead, J. Gavora, S. Mizuno, F.A. Ponce de Leon, B. Sheldon, L.B. Crittenden, J.J. Bitgood, M. Soller, A. Vignal, and J. Hillel. *MORE CONFERENCE NEWS* ALLERTON II: Genetic Analysis of Economically Important Traits in Livestock This meeting will be held November 6-9, 1996 at the Allerton Conference Center near Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Registration is limited and is on a first come, first serve basis. Information and on-line registration can be accessed at http://c3po.ceps.uiuc.edu/allertonII/.

Other upcoming meetings of interest:

Plant and Animal Genome V; San Diego, CA, January 12-16, 1997; To be associated with National Animal Genome Research Program (NRSP-8) meeting and NC-168 Regional Research meeting. Abstract deadline, Nov. 4, 1996. Submit abstracts, view preliminary conference info. or past abstracts at http://probe.nalusda.gov:8000. Questions or requests for registration brochure should go to Scherago Intl. at pag5@scherago.com, tel. no.: (212) 643-1750, Fax: (212) 643-1758

Gordon Research Conference on Quantitative Genetics and Biotechnology, Doubletree Hotel, Ventura, CA, February 9-14, 1997. Co-chairs: William D. Beavis and Gretel Dentine (dentine@macc.wisc.edu)

Poultry Science Association, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, August 4-8, 1997; contact: Poultry Science Association, 1111 North Dunlap Avenue, Savoy, IL 61874 or http://gallus.tamu.edu/psa/psa.html/

Transgenic Animals in Agriculture, Granlibakken Conference Center, Tahoe City, CA, August 24-27, 1997; see http://pubweb.ucdavis.edu/Documents/BIOTECH/biotech1.htm

International Course in QTL Detection and Marker-Assisted Seletion, Mitzpa Rachel Convention Center, Jerusalem, ISRAEL, August 24-Sept. 4, 1997 (dates tentative). Contact: Joel Weller at weller@agri.huji.ac.il

6th World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia, January 12-16, 1998. Contact: Dr. Laurie Piper at 61 67 73-3609, Fax: 61 67 73-3611, email: 6wcgalp@mendel.une.edu.au

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1997 USDA National Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program announced

The Program Description and Application Kit can be accessed at http://www.reeusda.gov or can be obtained by phone at 202-401-5048 or by email at psb@reeusda.gov.

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*COORDINATOR NEWS*

WISCONSIN WILD LIFE: LIVESTOCK GENOME RESEARCH MEETING

H. Cheng and J. Dodgson represented poultry at a meeting organized by Neal Jorgensen and Dan Laster in Madison, WI on August 15 and 16. The purpose of the meeting was to initiate a group discussion among representatives of USDA-CSREES, which organizes Gene Mapping research under the NAGRP, and USDA-ARS, which organizes Germplasm efforts and which also supports two of the most important contributors to agricultural animal gene mapping at the Meat Animal Research Center (Clay Center) and the Avian Disease and Oncology Lab (East Lansing). Animal geneticists representing a variety of affiliations and species participated. Discussion focused on future mechanisms by which animal agricultural genetics might be supported, especially at the end of the present 5 year NRSP-8 project in 1998. No final conclusions were reached, but it is hoped that mechanisms can be established that encourage a concerted effort by all participants to maintain and build on the existing momentum in domestic animal gene mapping. All the Species Coordinators attended, along with several NRSP-8 Technical Committee representatives and Dick Frahm, Director of the NAGRP, so this meeting also provided an opportunity to plan for the upcoming year, as well.

A valuable side benefit to this meeting was that it allowed us to visit with our Madison colleagues, Lyman Crittenden and Jim Bitgood. Jim took us on a tour of UW poultry facilities, and Critt took us to the site of his future retirement home (joint with his daughter and son-in-law). The site was lovely, but still at a rather formative stage. Good luck with the homesteading, Critt!

VISITOR FROM THE EAST: CONSENSUS IS REACHED

Nat Bumstead was one of many poultry geneticists who recently visited East Lansing for the 5th International Symposium on Marek's Disease. While here, he and Hans Cheng finalized the status of a consensus chicken genetic map that aligns both the present East Lansing and Compton reference maps, as of Sept. 1996. (More below under COORDINATION RESOURCES.)

GERMPLASM PRESERVATION: SAVE THE CHICKENS! At the request of the co-chairs (Bob Taylor and Mary Delany), I have joined Jim Bitgood, Dick Frahm and several other colleagues on the Avian Genetics Resources Task Force which is an outgrowth of the University of California Genetic Resources Conservation Program. The goal of the Task Force is to produce a comprehensive and authorative document on the issues of conservation, management, development, funding, and accessibility of poultry genetic stocks. The recommendations in this report can then be used to provide a framework for the successful conservation of such stocks. Information on poultry stocks that are in danger of termination should either be emailed to Dr. J. Pisenti (jmpisenti@ucdavis.edu) or you may fill out the on-line form under "Save our Chicken Stocks" on the homepage at http://poultry.mph.msu.edu.

TEST FTP MAP SITE: In an effort to make the transfer of the updated East Lansing reference map data more facile (than the present mechanism of shipping diskettes), we have established a test ftp site on our Homepage at http://poultry.mph.msu.edu/. This site, presently titled "East Lansing Map", will automatically ftp the latest posted mapping data as a tabular text file, if you click on it. To be able to view the file data directly, it is necessary to have an appropriate browser/helper combination (I use Netscape with MS Excel configured as a helper application.) For those of you with the Map Manager Program (MacIntosh only), you should be able to plug this file into Map Manager and get an updated map. If you have problems in importing this file (as we have had on occasion), please let us know.

*COORDINATION RESOURCES*

CHICKEN MICROSATELLITE PRIMER COMPREHENSIVE MAPPING KIT # 2: The second comprehensive mapping kit of fluorescently-labeled microsatellite primers is now available. This kit contains another 124 microsatellite primer pairs (beyond the 120 pairs already in Kit #1) which have been located on the East Lansing reference map. (A small number of these markers cannot yet be released, pending final permission from the contributors. We expect this shortly.) These loci are primarily based on new microsatellites developed by Hans Cheng at ADOL and those recently published by Martien Groenen (Poultry Science 75:746-754, 1996). Information on this kit, along with updated microsatellite loci and map information for all published (and some unpublished) microsatellite loci will soon be posted under "Microsatellite Marker Information and Available Primer Kits" on our homepage at http://poultry.mph.msu.edu. Like Kit #1, this kit will be available free of charge to those involved in major mapping efforts. Email me (22314jbd@msu.edu) or Hans Cheng (hcheng@msu.edu) if you are interested. ONE CAVEAT: Those markers in this Kit developed by the Groenen lab (designated by "MCW") are the subject of patent applications by Euribred B.V. which financed the Groenen effort. Inquiries about the use of these primers should be directed to Euribred as noted in the reference cited above. The kit is offered with the understanding that appropriate use of potentially patented material is the responsibility of the user and not of the Poultry Coordinators (although it is our belief that non-commercial use of the primers is unrestricted, at a minimum).

CHICKEN MICROSATELLITE PRIMER COMPREHENSIVE MAPPING KIT # 1 and POPULATION TESTER PRIMER KIT:

A limited number of sets of Primer Kit #1 remain, along with numerous sets of our Population Tester Kit (9 highly polymorphic primer pairs for strain identification purposes). At last count, one or both of these kits had been distributed to 32 other laboratories, and requests are still coming in. We're glad to see that the kits have been so useful to other investigators.

COMING SOON: CHICKEN GENETIC MAP POSTER:

PERFECT FOR HOLIDAY GIVING

Hans Cheng is arranging to have poster size copies of the latest version of the Consensus Chicken Genetic Map printed. The Consensus Map has been derived by Hans and Nat Bumstead as indicated above, in which the present East Lansing and Compton Maps are aligned. Availability of these posters will be announced in the next Newsletter and on our Homepage at http://poultry.mph.msu.edu/

Addresses:

Jerry Dodgson, Coord.
Dept. of Microbiology
Giltner Hall
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
email: 22314jbd@msu.edu

Lyman Crittenden, Co-Coord.
Dept. of Microbiology
634 Emerson St.
University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI 53715
email: crittend@itis.com

Hans Cheng, Co-Coord.
ADOL
USDA-ARS
3606 E. Mt. Hope Ave.
East Lansing, MI 48824
email: hcheng@msu.edu

Scott Eisensmith, Database Analyst
same MSU address as above
email: eisensmi@poultry.mph.msu.edu

Supported by Regional Research Funds, Hatch Act, to the National Research Service Program: NRSP-8.

National Animal Genome Research Program, Richard Frahm, Director, CSREES

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