Mitochondrial DNA study in domestic chicken

Abstract

Mitochondrial DNA has the characteristic of quick evolution, matrilineal inheritance, and simple molecular structure, and it serves as the most used marker for molecular study. As an important role of genomics, studying it can help understand the origins, history, and adaptation of domestication. Because of its wide spread popularity, chicken is one of the important domestic animals, which provides humans with a stable source of protein, including both meat and eggs. This article reviews recent studies of chicken mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondrial D-loop and mitochondrial genomics pinpoint the geographic origins of the domestic chicken which was multiple origins; moreover, the mitochondria gene mutation has an association with high-altitude adaptation and the mitochondria-associated diseases’ study in poultry is not performed.

• Chicken
• disease
• high-altitude adaptation
• mitochondrial DNA
• multiple origins

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the program for the key project from education department of Sichuan Province (14ZA0021), the project of the application basis project from the science and technology department of Sichuan province (2014JY0163), and the project of national natural science foundation of China (31402068).

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.