Abstract
BackgroundThe prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) is an emerging rodent model for investigating the genetics, evolution and molecular mechanisms of social behavior. Though a karyotype for the prairie vole has been reported and low-resolution comparative cytogenetic analyses have been done in this species, other basic genetic resources for this species, such as a genetic linkage map, are lacking.ResultsHere we report the construction of a genome-wide linkage map of the prairie vole. The linkage map consists of 406 markers that are spaced on average every 7 Mb and span an estimated ~90% of the genome. The sex average length of the linkage map is 1707 cM, which, like other Muroid rodent linkage maps, is on the lower end of the length distribution of linkage maps reported to date for placental mammals. Linkage groups were assigned to 19 out of the 26 prairie vole autosomes as well as the X chromosome. Comparative analyses of the prairie vole linkage map based on the location of 387 Type I markers identified 61 large blocks of synteny with the mouse genome. In addition, the results of the comparative analyses revealed a potential elevated rate of inversions in the prairie vole lineage compared to the laboratory mouse and rat.ConclusionsA genetic linkage map of the prairie vole has been constructed and represents the fourth genome-wide high-resolution linkage map reported for Muroid rodents and the first for a member of the Arvicolinae sub-family. This resource will advance studies designed to dissect the genetic basis of a variety of social behaviors and other traits in the prairie vole as well as our understanding of genome evolution in the genus Microtus.
Highlights
The prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) is an emerging rodent model for investigating the genetics, evolution and molecular mechanisms of social behavior
Comparisons of G-banded karyotypes, cross-species chromosome painting, and multi-color banding has yielded a lowresolution view of how the karyotypes within the Microtus genus differ from one another, the likely number and type of large-scale chromosomal rearrangements that have led to those observed differences, as well as the reconstruction of a proposed ancestral Microtus genome [10,11,12,13,14,15]
With the goal of developing additional genetic resources for this species and for facilitating studies of genome evolution in this lineage, here we describe the construction of a linkage map of the prairie vole (2N = 54) and comparative analyses of this genome with respect to the laboratory mouse (2N = 40) and rat (2N = 42), as well as other Microtus genomes
Summary
The prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) is an emerging rodent model for investigating the genetics, evolution and molecular mechanisms of social behavior. Though a karyotype for the prairie vole has been reported and low-resolution comparative cytogenetic analyses have been done in this species, other basic genetic resources for this species, such as a genetic linkage map, are lacking. Though the genome sequence of just two Muroid rodents, the laboratory mouse (Mus musculus) and rat (Rattus norvegicus), are currently available [3,4], interspecies comparisons based on cross-species comparative chromosome painting has provided a low-resolution view of the similarities and differences in genome organization in a number of species within this super-family A higher resolution map, such as a genetic linkage map, that could reveal additional insights into the rates and patterns of genome evolution within the Microtus genus has not reported
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