title: A minimally invasive procedure for sexing young zebra finches.
abstract: Zebra finches have been widely used to study neurobiology underlying vocal development. Because only male zebra finches learn song, efficient developmental use of these animals requires early determination of sex at ages that precede maturation of secondary sex characteristics. We have developed a sex determination method that combines a forensics method of genomic DNA isolation (from very small blood samples) with PCR amplification from Z and W sex chromosomes (males are ZZ, females ZW). This combination results in a minimally invasive yet highly reliable and convenient genotyping method.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Brody School of Medicine, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27834, USA. soderstromk@ecu.edu
authors.forename: Ken
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Soderstrom
authors.forename: Weixi
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Qin
authors.forename: Matthew H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Leggett
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000235:genetics; D000818:Animals; D004247:DNA / Q000097:blood* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D005260:Female; D046369:Finches / Q000235:genetics*; D016678:Genome / Q000235:genetics; D005838:Genotype; D008297:Male; D008967:Molecular Biology / Q000379:methods*; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods*; D012730:Sex Chromosomes / Q000235:genetics; D012732:Sex Determination Analysis / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D004247:DNA