A predicted microsatellite map of the passerine genome based on chicken-passerine sequence similarity

Abstract We present a predicted passerine genome map consisting of 196 microsatellite markers distributed across 25 chromosomes. The map was constructed by assigning chromosomal locations based on the sequence similarity between 550 publicly available passerine microsatellites and the draft chicken genome sequence published by the International Chicken Genome Sequencing Consortium. We compared this passerine microsatellite map with a recently published great reed warbler (Acrocephalus arundinaceus) linkage map derived from the segregation of marker alleles in a pedigree of a natural population. Twenty-four microsatellite markers were shared between the two maps, distributed across ten chromosomes. Synteny was maintained between the predicted passerine microsatellite map and the great reed warbler linkage map, confirming the validity and accuracy of our approach. Possible applications of the predicted passerine microsatellite map include genome mapping; quantitative trait locus (QTL) discovery; understanding heterozygosity-fitness correlations; investigating avian karyotype evolution; understanding microsatellite mutation processes; and for identifying loci conserved in multiple species, unlinked loci for use in genotyping sets and sex-linked markers.