Variation under domestication in animal models: the case of the Mexican axolotl
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Variation under domestication in animal models: the case of the Mexican axolotl María Torres-Sánchez1,2
Abstract Background: Species adaptation to laboratory conditions is a special case of domestication that has modified model organisms phenotypically and genetically. The characterisation of these changes is crucial to understand how this variation can affect the outcome of biological experiments. Yet despite the wide use of laboratory animals in biological research, knowledge of the genetic diversity within and between different strains and populations of some animal models is still scarce. This is particularly the case of the Mexican axolotl, which has been bred in captivity since 1864. Results: Using gene expression data from nine different projects, nucleotide sequence variants were characterised, and distinctive genetic background of the experimental specimens was uncovered. This study provides a catalogue of thousands of nucleotide variants along predicted protein-coding genes, while identifying genome-wide differences between pigment phenotypes in laboratory populations. Conclusions: Awareness of the genetic variation could guide a better experimental design while helping to develop molecular tools for monitoring genetic diversity and studying gene functions in laboratory axolotls. Overall, this study highlights the cross-taxa utility that transcriptomic data might have to assess the genetic variation of the experimental specimens, which might help to shorten the journey towards reproducible research. Keywords: Artificial selection, Protein-coding genetic variation, Leucism, Reproducibility, Single nucleotide variants, Transcriptomics
Background Biological variation is inherent to all living organisms. Animals that are used in research experiments present different levels of phenotypic and genetic variation not only as a result of their natural evolutionary history but, in some cases, also as a consequence of domestication processes. Species adaptation for human use, namely domestication, has modified captive populations of many species when compared to their wild counterparts. Being analogous to natural selection, domestication has greatly expanded our understanding of biological variation and evolution since Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Department of Neuroscience, Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center & Ambystoma Genetic Stock Center, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40536, USA 2 Present address: Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-8525, USA
Darwin [1, 2] and Wallace [3], offering a framework to study different biological traits [4, 5]. By means of artificial selection, unusual phenotypes and mutants can be propagated in captivity expanding the phenotypic variation of the domesticated populations in relation to their free-living conspecifics [6]. In contrast, genetic variation is typically skewed and reduced in domesticated populations [7], since they are generally established from relatively few individuals of
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