title: Characterization of genome-wide segmental duplications reveals a common genomic feature of association with immunity among domestic animals.
abstract: Segmental duplications (SDs) commonly exist in plant and animal genomes, playing crucial roles in genomic rearrangement, gene innovation and the formation of copy number variants. However, they have received little attention in most livestock species.
  
  
  
  Aiming at characterizing SDs across the genomes of diverse livestock species, we mapped genome-wide SDs of horse, rabbit, goat, sheep and chicken, and also enhanced the existing SD maps of cattle and pig genomes based on the most updated genome assemblies. We adopted two different detection strategies, whole genome analysis comparison and whole genome shotgun sequence detection, to pursue more convincing findings. Accordingly we identified SDs for each species with the length of from 21.7 Mb to 164.1 Mb, and 807 to 4,560 genes were harboured within the SD regions across different species. More interestingly, many of these SD-related genes were involved in the process of immunity and response to external stimuli. We also found the existence of 59 common genes within SD regions in all studied species except goat. These common genes mainly consisted of both UDP glucuronosyltransferase and Interferon alpha families, implying the connection between SDs and the evolution of these gene families.
  
  
  
  Our findings provide insights into livestock genome evolution and offer rich genomic sources for livestock genomic research.
authors.affiliation: National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China.
authors.forename: Xiaotian
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.affiliation: National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China.
authors.forename: Jicai
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal and Avian Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20740, USA.
authors.forename: Abinash
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Padhi
authors.affiliation: National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ning
authors.affiliation: National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China.
authors.forename: Jinluan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.affiliation: National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China.
authors.forename: Aiguo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Box 30709-00100, Kenya.
authors.forename: Raphael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mrode
authors.affiliation: National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China. liujf@cau.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jian-Feng
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000829:Animals, Domestic / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology*; D002645:Chickens; D002874:Chromosome Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D014453:Glucuronosyltransferase / Q000235:genetics; D006041:Goats; D006736:Horses; D016898:Interferon-alpha / Q000235:genetics; D011817:Rabbits; D056916:Segmental Duplications, Genomic; D012756:Sheep
chemical_list: D016898:Interferon-alpha; D014453:Glucuronosyltransferase
keywords: Copy number; Domestic animals; Duplicated genes; Segmental duplications