Fluorescence in situ hybridization mapping of 15 loci in Cattle, River Buffalo and Sheep

Although cattle genome assembly is available since March 2005 (Baylor 2.0), some fragments are still unmapped also in the last Baylor genome assembly: October 2007 (Baylor 4.0). The most part of these fragments were mapped on UMD 3.1 genome assembly (BosTau6, November 2009) but the confirmation of accuracy of the assembly is desiderable. In this work we mapped for the first time, by FISH-tecnique, 15 cattle BACs randomly chosen among the longest un-mapped fragment on cattle genome. Moreover, we use the same BACs to map these fragments on river buffalo (Bubalus bubalis, 2n=50) and sheep (Ovis aries, 2n=54) genome. The results obtained confirmed both the accuracy of the localization of these 15 genomic fragments on Bos tau6 genome assembly and the comparative mapping data available for river buffalo and sheep. Moreover, two of them map on the PAR of all three species. Acknowledgements. This study was supported by the National Research Council (CNR) of Italy, CISIA VARIGEAV project.