Abstract
The W chromosomal DNA fragments of the domestic chicken, Gallus gallus domesticus, and Japanese quail, Coturnix coturnix japonica, were separated as bands by pulsed field gel electrophoresis after digestion with restriction endonucleases. These fragments were detected with 14 kinds of restriction endonucleases out of the 20 kinds in the chicken and only 1 kind of restriction endonucleases out of 16 kinds in the quail. In the chicken, many of these fragments were molecules greater than 2 megabasepairs (Mb) in size and hybridized with the W chromosome-specific 0.7Kb XhoI repetitive DNA sequences of the chicken. However, the W chromosomal DNA fragments which did not show hybridization with the 0.7Kb XhoI repeating unit were detected as 3 bands with DraI digestion and as 4 bands with EcoRI digestion up to a size less than 2Mb in the chicken. The results may suggest that there could be some other repeating units than has been reported before.
