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Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) display the greatest variability of return times to freshwater of all Pacific salmon. Differential return times to freshwater have segregated populations of Chinook into two broad types or runs, fall and spring, named for the time of year in which they migrate to freshwater. Migration time in Chinook has a strong genetic component, and historically, fall and spring runs were spatially and temporally isolated in watersheds. Using a population of Chinook from California’s Central Valley, I sought to examine gene regulation that results in differential run-timing. Functional genomics has proven to be powerful in distinguishing genes differentially expressed between alternate behaviors in other systems and I used the technique LongSAGE to examine genes differentially regulated between fall and spring run Chinook during freshwater migration. I constructed three LongSAGE libraries from the brains of a spring, fall and ocean sample and observed 221 differentially expressed tags. Using expressed sequence tag (EST) libraries from Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and rainbow trout (O. mykiss), I was able to assign putative functions to 59% of differentially expressed tags. Additionally, I tested the expression levels of seven genes in the brains of 8 additional individuals from both runs and found none significantly differentially expressed between fall and spring runs. This study is the first to apply LongSAGE to salmon and provides a framework for conducting future gene expression research into reproduction and migration times, as well as physiology of migrating salmon. |
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