In this study, we aimed to elucidate the origin of domestic chickens and their evolutionary history over the course of their domestication. We conducted a large-scale genetic study using mitochondrial DNA D-loop sequences and 28 microsatellite DNA markers to investigate the diversity of 298 wild progenitor red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) across two subspecies (G. g. gallus and G. g. spadiceus) from 12 populations and 138 chickens from 10 chicken breeds indigenous to Thailand. Twenty-nine D-loop sequence haplotypes were newly identified: 14 and 17 for Thai indigenous chickens and red junglefowl, respectively. Bayesian clustering analysis with microsatellite markers also revealed high genetic diversity in the red junglefowl populations. These results suggest that the ancestral populations of Thai indigenous chickens were large, and that a part of the red junglefowl population gene pool was not involved in the domestication process. In addition, some haplogroups that are distributed in other countries of Southeast Asia were not observed in either the red junglefowls or the indigenous chickens examined in the present study, suggesting that chicken domestication occurred independently across multiple regions in Southeast Asia.

No abstract

The highly repetitive DNA sequence of centromeric heterochromatin is an effective molecular cytogenetic marker for investigating genomic compartmentalization between macrochromosomes and microchromosomes in birds. We isolated four repetitive sequence families of centromeric heterochromatin from three Anseriformes species, viz., domestic duck (Anas platyrhynchos, APL), bean goose (Anser fabalis, AFA), and whooper swan (Cygnus cygnus, CCY), and characterized the sequences by molecular cytogenetic approach. The 190-bp APL-HaeIII and 101-bp AFA-HinfI-S sequences were localized in almost all chromosomes of A. platyrhynchos and A. fabalis, respectively. However, the 192-bp AFA-HinfI-L and 290-bp CCY-ApaI sequences were distributed in almost all microchromosomes of A. fabalis and in approximately 10 microchromosomes of C. cygnus, respectively. APL-HaeIII, AFA-HinfI-L, and CCY-ApaI showed partial sequence homology with the chicken nuclear-membrane-associated (CNM) repeat families, which were localized primarily to the centromeric regions of microchromosomes in Galliformes, suggesting that ancestral sequences of the CNM repeat families are observed in the common ancestors of Anseriformes and Galliformes. These results collectively provide the possibility that homogenization of centromeric heterochromatin occurred between microchromosomes in Anseriformes and Galliformes; however, homogenization between macrochromosomes and microchromosomes also occurred in some centromeric repetitive sequences.

We have studied the crystal orientation of Ag thin films on a [Formula: see text] surface using grazing incidence X-ray diffraction with synchrotron radiation. After preparation of a [Formula: see text] surface, 50 ML Ag was deposited on the [Formula: see text] at the substrate temperature of 50–300 K. We found the [Formula: see text] structure at the interface. As for the Ag film, the Ag}111{ plane was mainly grown on the surface. The domain size of the Ag films strongly depends on the substrate temperature of the deposition. The domain size is found to be regulated by an original domain size of the [Formula: see text] surface before Ag deposition, which relates to the surface-structural phase transition. By scattering intensity measurements in the reciprocal lattice space, we found streaky scattering along the [Formula: see text] direction parallel to the surface. This scattering is thought to originate from the CTR (crystal truncation rod) scattering from a sidewall plane of the Ag {111} nanometer-scale crystals.