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Science 5 March 2004:
Vol. 303. no. 5663, p. 1449
DOI: 10.1126/science.303.5663.1449d
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ScienceScope

Figure 1 Genome sequencers have taken a first pass at unraveling the genome of the chicken. The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and its collaborators last week released a rough draft of the genome of a red jungle fowl, considered the ancestor of all domestic chickens. At 1 billion bases, the genome is one-third the size of the human genome. It's the first--and so far only--avian genome in NHGRI's sequencing hopper.

Birds stand between fish and mammals in the evolutionary timeline, and the new sequence will help researchers identify key sections of DNA that are not genes, says evolutionary biologist Hans Ellegren of Uppsala University in Sweden. China's Beijing Genomics Institute, meanwhile, has sequenced parts of three domestic chickens to see how their genomes differ from their ancestors'. Surprisingly, "genetic variation is much higher than in humans," says Ellegren, a mystery that researchers will still have to peck away at.

CREDIT: DIANA ANDERSEN, KIMANI AVIARIES, WESTERN AUSTRALIA




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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)