Esterase-D Isozymes in Jepanese Quail

Abstract

The red cells, sera, muscles and eleven internal organs from four strains, one wild (WM) and three domestic (DN, DS and DM), of Japanese quails were examined for esterase-D isozymes by the use of starch gel electrophresis.Three bands were detected in a region (Fig. 1). No difference was found among the zymograms from erythrocytes, muscles and various internal organs.The results of mating experiment indicated that these three bands were controlled by codominant autosomal alleles symbolized ES-DF and ES-DS (Table 2). Three domesic strains differed in the frequency of these alleles, e. g. the frequency of ES-DF was 0.264 in DN, 0.275 in DS and, 0.568 in DM. The differences from 0.5 were statistically significant in the domestic straims and not sigificant in the wild strain (Table 3).