An expressed sequence tag analysis of the chicken reproductive tract transcriptome

Analysis of the chicken reproductive tract transcriptome is important in comparative biology for analysis of reproductive tract development and evolution. In addition, molecular analysis of the reproductive tract is important for identification of genes affecting fertility in the poultry industry. We sampled the chicken reproductive tract (ovary, oviduct, and testis) transcriptome, generating 5,328 expressed sequence tags that assembled into 4,518 contigs. We identified 475 contigs with no match in the current expressed sequence tag databases or in GenBank. The novel contigs included 31 with no match to the current assembly of the chicken genome, 119 representing spliced transcripts, and 309 that were unspliced. More detailed molecular characterization of the 428 novel contigs present in the assembly will be important to gene discovery and annotation of the chicken and other vertebrate genomes.