Whole Genome Resequencing of Arkansas Progressor and Regressor Line Chickens to Identify SNPs Associated with Tumor Regression

Arkansas Regressor (AR) chickens, unlike Arkansas Progressor (AP) chickens, regress tumors induced by the v-src oncogene. To better understand the genetic factors responsible for this tumor regression property, whole genome resequencing was conducted using Illumina Hi-Seq 2 × 100 bp paired-end read method (San Diego, CA, USA) with AR (confirmed tumor regression property) and AP chickens. Sequence reads were aligned to the chicken reference genome (galgal5) and produced coverage of 11× and 14× in AR and AP, respectively. A total of 7.1 and 7.3 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were present in AR and AP genomes, respectively. Through a series of filtration processes, a total of 12,242 SNPs were identified in AR chickens that were associated with non-synonymous, frameshift, nonsense, no-start and no-stop mutations. Further filtering of SNPs based on read depth ≥ 10, SNP% ≥ 0.75, and non-synonymous mutations identified 63 reliable marker SNPs which were chosen for gene network analysis. The network analysis revealed that the candidate genes identified in AR chickens play roles in networks centered to ubiquitin C (UBC), phosphoinositide 3-kinases (PI3K), and nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kB) complexes suggesting that the tumor regression property in AR chickens might be associated with ubiquitylation, PI3K, and NF-kB signaling pathways. This study provides an insight into genetic factors that could be responsible for the tumor regression property.