›› 2018, Vol. 45 ›› Issue (1): 154-161.doi: 10.16431/j.cnki.1671-7236.2018.01.020

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Research Progress on Molecular Mechanisms of Rumpless Trait in Chicken

HUsile1,2, TAO Sarula3, WANG Yuexing1,2, WANG Wei1,2, WANG Yanxin1,2, QI Wangmei4, ZHANG Wenguang1,2   

  1. 1. College of Animal Science, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, China;
    2. Key Laboratory of Animal Science, Breeding and Reproduction of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Hohhot 010018, China;
    3. Livestock Improvement Station of Ordos City, Ordos 017000, China;
    4. College of Veterinary Medicine, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, China
  • Received:2017-08-22 Online:2018-01-20 Published:2018-01-20

Abstract:

The tail of an animal has the functions of direction changing,movement and speed controlling,body supporting,defense,attack,heat preservation,warning, escape and predation.The tail of birds plays a key role in maintaining balance during flight,but in evolution,the tail appears to shorten and fuse,such as Piao chicken in China and Araucana chicken in Chile. The authors reviewed the anatomy research about rumpless characters of chicken in recent years,the results showed that there had been shown rumples phenomenon in the period of Hamburger and Humilton 19 stage,and rumpless chicken were lack of uropygial gland,rectrix,sickle feather, caudal vertebra and pygostyle. At the same time,the author analyzed the molecular genetic mechanism of caudal vertebrae development arrest,including the transcriptional regulation of the periodic expression genes that influenced the tail extension process, the back-end factors gradient induces tail formation, the Hox gene influenced the process of segmental specialization,and gene mutation that might lead to rumpless phenomenon. The author proposed the key molecular and signaling pathways in embryonic development,including Irx1 and Irx2 genes,Notch signaling pathway,Wnt signaling pathway,Fgf signaling pathway and RA signaling pathway. The study of the molecular mechanism of rumpless chicken not only could understand the mechanism of tail development of vertebrate in embryo development, but also helped to reveal the evolution process of tail shortening and fusion in birds.

Key words: Piao chicken; rumpless trait; somite development; molecular inheritance

CLC Number: