Genetic diversity of horses and chickens – a review

The diversity of farm animals is the result of the domestication of species through a long process of migration, selection, adaptation, and other natural events. This species diversity of farm animals needs to be conserved through demographic characteristics, recording of the production environment, and effective data management. In this process, the data presented based on molecular biology tracing becomes very important because of the discovery of so many breeds livestock found today, especially horses and chickens. Data based on production records or morphological characteristics becomes difficult to use in an effort to determine the species hierarchy of horses and chickens, especially in population studies that are mostly carried out in livestock studies. Through molecular studies, variations in the genetic diversity of horses and chickens will be easier to understand. The domestication of chickens is believed to be the result of several domestication events, most notably the red jungle fowl (Gallus gallus) and may also involve Gallus sonneratii and possibly Gallus lafayettii. Horses were domesticated in broad areas of Eurasia steppe. It is thought that mares underwent the domestication process many times, but few stallions contributed to the genetic formation of domesticated horses.Keywords: Genetic Diversity, Horses, Chickens, Domestication, Livestock genetic databas

MolabIS: A Labs Backbone for Storing, Managing and Evaluating Molecular Genetics Data

Using paper lab books and spreadsheets to store and manage growing datasets in a file system is inefficient, time consuming and error-prone. Therefore, the overall purpose of this study is to develop an integrated information system for small laboratories conducting Sanger sequencing and microsatellite genotyping projects. To address this, the thesis has investigated the following three issues. First, we proposed a uniform solution using the workflow approach to efficiently collect and store data items in different labs. The outcome is the design of the formalized data framework which is the basic to create a general data model for biodiversity studies. Second, we designed and implemented a web-based information system (MolabIS) allowing lab people to store all original data at each step of their workflow. MolabIS provides essential tools to import, store, organize, search, modify, report and export relevant data. Finally, we conducted a case study to evaluate the performance of MolabIS with typical operations in a production mode. Consequently, we can propose the use of virtual appliance as an efficient solution for the deployment of complex open-source information systems like MolabIS. The major result of this study, along with the publications, is the MolabIS software which is freely released under GPL license at http://www.molabis.org. With its general data model, easy installation process and additional tools for data migration, MolabIS can be used in a wide range of molecular genetics labs