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Characterization of a Cardiac Complementary Deoxyribonucleic Acid Library from the Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo)

K. M. Mendoza^*, W. Chiang, G. M. Strasburg and K. M. Reed^*

^* Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, University of Minnesota, St. Paul 55108; and Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Michigan State University, East Lansing 48824

¹ Corresponding author: reedx054{at}umn.edu

Although the domestic turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is a valuable agricultural commodity, genetic studies on this species lag behind those of other agricultural species. In this study, we examined expressed sequence tags (EST) from a turkey cardiac cDNA library constructed from 4 birds representing 2 developmental stages. A collection of 3,937 EST sequences were sequenced and analyzed for gene annotation and sequence variation. Clustering of sequences resulted in 353 contigs and 874 singletons (1,227 putative transcripts). All EST sequences were compared by BLASTN to the chicken whole genome sequence and to Ensembl and National Center for Biotechnology Information databases. The majority of significant matches correspond to genes found in the chicken. Sequence polymorphisms were identified in 310 contigs, 64 where the minor allele was observed to be present in more than 1 sequence. This study gives species-specific insight into the cardiac transcriptome of turkeys and provides resources for future studies of cardiac function.

Key Words: turkey • cardiac muscle • expressed sequence tag • round heart • cardiomyopathy