Evidence on the stability of histone H1.a polymorphic variants during selection in quail

Abstract

Abstract. The goal of this work was to check whether selection for quantitative traits may cause a change in the histone H1 allelic complement and whether it can therefore be considered a modulator of histone H1-dependent chromatin functioning. For this purpose, a fluctuation of histone H1.a polymorphic variants was analyzed among a non-selected (control) quail line and the line selected for a high cholesterol content in the egg yolk. The histone H1.a was found to be polymorphic due to its differential migration rate in the AU-PAGE (acetic acidurea polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis). Based on this, two H1.a isoforms (H1.a1 and H1.a2) that form three phenotypes (a1, a2 and a1a2) were distinguished in the quail lines tested. A comparably expressed (p > 0.05) and low relative variable (coefficient of variation, CV < 0.25) histone H1.a phenotypes were in agreement with Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) in both the non-selected (χ 2 = 1.29, p = 0.25) and selected (χ 2 = 1.9, p = 0.16) quail line. The similarity among quail lines was assessed based on the equal distribution of histone H1.a phenotypes (χ 2 = 1.63, p = 0.44) and alleles (χ 2 = 0.018, p = 0.89) frequency in both quail lines tested. This indicates that selection does not affect the histone H1.a polymorphic variants. The stability of histone H1.a during selection might suggest that likely chromatin processes coupled to the selected trait are not linked to the activity of histone H1.a.

A status of guinea fowl (Numida meleagris) and pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) population transferred from wildlife to the breeding assessed based on the histone H1.c’ polymorphic variation

“…This case concerns the Japanese quail populations, found as conform to the Hardy-Weinberg expectation ( P > 0.05) and exhibit a low level of inbreeding ( F = 0.20). 35 The other tendency is characteristic for bird population possessing a limited number of individuals relocated from natural habitat to the captive breeding. In such a cases, a deficit and/or a lack of heterozygous individuals was repeatedly observed and, as a consequence, violation of Hardy-Weinberg principle and an operation of inbreeding and genetic drift.…”

Polymorphism of histone H1.c’ in the population of Muscovy duck (Cairina moschata L.): a link between histone H1.c’ allelic variants and ADP-ribosylation of histone H1 subtypes

“…These populations usually stay in conformity with the Hardy-Weinberg law and exhibit a low level of inbreeding resulting from slight deficiency of the heterozygotes. An example are quail populations analysed based on the polymorphic variants of histone H1.d and H1.z (Kowalski et al 2015) and histone H1.a (Kowalski & Knaga 2017). They are found to agree with the Hardy-Weinberg principle (p > 0.05) and exhibit no appreciable inbreeding (F = 0.15−0.20).…”

“…Less frequent are histone H1 isoforms identified based on a difference in their net charges. Examples are chicken, duck (Górnicka-Michalska et al 2014) and quail (Kowalski & Knaga 2017) isoforms of histone H1.a. Occasionally, tri-allelic H1 subtypes, such as duck histone H1.b (Pałyga et al 2000) and H1.z (Kowalski et al 2004), displaying a set of isoforms with different molecular weight and different net charge, are encountered.…”