Molecular sexing of endangered cranes based on chd-w gene

Abstract

Cranes are monomorphic birds and it is difficult to determinate their sexes. Polymerase chain reaction was conducted to amplifythe female-specific segments on chromo-helicase-DNA binding 1 gene, using specially designed primers. The products were cloned into vector pMD-18T, transformed into Escherichia coli DH-5α and sequenced. The sequences have been submitted to National Center for BiotechnologyInformation (NCBI) (GenBank Accession Number: AY366489, AY366703, AY367004, AY367005, AY377921), and were aligned by Clustal W using DNAstar 2.0 Megalign. This highlyconserved region in cranes is 176 bp, consisting of 87 bp intron b and 89 bp exon. This section is female-specific as shown byalignment in GenBank. The pair of primers in our experiment has been proved to be veryuseful to determine the sex in cranes. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.