BAC-based sequencing of behaviorally-relevant genes in the prairie vole

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 7; no. 1; p. e29345
• Main Authors: McGraw, Lisa A, Davis, Jamie K, Thomas, Pamela J, Young, Larry J, Thomas, James W
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 06-01-2012; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Addictive behaviors; Agriculture; Amino Acid Sequence; Amino acids; Analysis; Animal behavior; Animals; Artificial chromosomes; Arvicolinae - genetics; Arvicolinae - physiology; Assemblies; Bacterial artificial chromosomes; Behavior; Behavior, Animal - physiology; Biology; Brain research; Chromosomes, Artificial, Bacterial - genetics; Gene expression; Gene Frequency; Gene sequencing; Genes; Genes - physiology; Genetic aspects; Genetic research; Genetic Variation - physiology; Genetics; Genomes; Haplotypes; Heterozygosity; INDEL Mutation - physiology; Males; Microtus ochrogaster; Neurosciences; Pan troglodytes; Phylogeny; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide - physiology; Proteins; Reproduction (copying); Rodents; Segmental Duplications, Genomic; Sequence Alignment; Sequence Analysis, DNA - methods; Social aspects; Social behavior; Studies; Veterinary Science; North Carolina; Atlanta Georgia; Georgia; United States > US; Maryland
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0029345

The prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) is an important model organism for the study of social behavior, yet our ability to correlate genes and behavior in this species has been limited due to a lack of genetic and genomic resources. Here we report the BAC-based targeted sequencing of behaviorally-relevant genes and flanking regions in the prairie vole. A total of 6.4 Mb of non-redundant or haplotype-specific sequence assemblies were generated that span the partial or complete sequence of 21 behaviorally-relevant genes as well as an additional 55 flanking genes. Estimates of nucleotide diversity from 13 loci based on alignments of 1.7 Mb of haplotype-specific assemblies revealed an average pair-wise heterozygosity (8.4×10(-3)). Comparative analyses of the prairie vole proteins encoded by the behaviorally-relevant genes identified >100 substitutions specific to the prairie vole lineage. Finally, our sequencing data indicate that a duplication of the prairie vole AVPR1A locus likely originated from a recent segmental duplication spanning a minimum of 105 kb. In summary, the results of our study provide the genomic resources necessary for the molecular and genetic characterization of a high-priority set of candidate genes for regulating social behavior in the prairie vole.