IBT/023 STR Marker Analysis in Specialized Chicken Resource Population Developed for Identifying Egg Production-Specific Markers

S₃₀ generation of a pedigreed pure line (comprising of 778 female WLH progenies) was used to develop a resource population. On the basis of their part-period (up to 40 wks of age) egg production, approx. 10% hens (38 individuals) from both extreme ends were sorted out and constituted the resource population, comprising of high egg production (HEP) group and low egg production (LEP) group. The average part-period egg production, ASM and 40 wk egg weight in the HEP and LEP groups were 121.50 ± 5.66 eggs and 54.68 ± 4.14 eggs, 138.81 ± 6.60 d and 154.88 ± 9.73 d, and 50.33 ± 9.27 g and 49.16 ± 7.06 g, respectively. These differences were highly significant (P £ 0.01) in both the groups, suggesting that both groups were widely diverse. Out of 20 markers used to genotype the resource population, 13 (65%) were found to be monomorphic. A total of 35 different alleles were amplified and No. of alleles/marker ranged from 1–4. While 7 alleles were specific to HEP group, 5 were specific to LEP group, thereby suggesting that microsatellite markers are effective in identifying genomic differences between groups diversed for a specific trait such as egg production.