A retrovirus makes chicken eggshells blue

When you purchase chicken eggs at the market, they usually have white or brown shells. But some breeds of chicken produce blue or green eggs. The blue color is caused by insertion of a retrovirus into the chicken genome, which activates a gene involved in the production of blue eggs. The Araucana, a chicken breed from Chile, and Dongxiang and Lushi chickens in China lay blue eggs. Blue eggshell color is controlled by an autosomal dominant gene: eggs produced by homozygote chickens are darker blue than those from heterozygotes. The gene causing blue eggshell color is called oocyan (O) and was previously mapped to the short arm of chromosome 1. To further refine the location of the O gene, genetic crosses were performed using molecular markers on chromosome 1. The O gene was then located in a ~120 kb region which contained four genes. Only the SLCO1B3 was expressed in the uterus of Dongxiang chickens that produce blue eggs; it was not expressed in chickens that produce brown eggs. Sequence analysis of the SLCO1B3 revealed that an endogenous avian retrovirus called EAV-HP has inserted just upstream of the gene. This insertion places a promoter sequence in front of the SLCO1B3 gene. As a consequence, the SLCO1B3 gene is transcribed. In chickens that produce brown eggs, no retrovirus is inserted before the SLCO1B3 gene, and no mRNA encoding the protein is produced. The retrovirus insertion has occurred at different positions in the Chilean and Chinese chicken genomes. Thi...
Source: virology blog - Category: Virology Authors: Tags: Basic virology Information blue eggs chicken EAV-HP eggshell color endogenous insertional activation provirus retrovirus viral Source Type: blogs