Target-Capture of Genomic DNA Aythya ferina
Customised molecular baits to capture targets from a pool of isolated DNA were designed by MYcroarray (ArborBiosciences, MI, USA) for a total of 127 immune genes. We chose immune genes from the Toll-like receptor signalling pathway (apla04620), the Influenza A pathway (apla05164) and the RIG-I-like receptor signalling pathway (apla04622) for mallard in the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database. We further included IFITM3 and all known beta-defensins as some of these genes or gene regions have been studied previously in ducks. We designed the baits for the whole genes including 500bp down- and upstream (target sequences downloaded from BioMart, Ensembl release 91). The targeted region added up to approximately 1.77Mbp, with individual genes ranging from 90bp to 0.1Mb in size including introns and exons.