The First Cloned Chicken Gene at Edinburgh Research Station

According to scientist Peter J. Sharp in the Reproduction section of the IAPGR-ERS Report for 1986-1987, molecular geneticists and reproductive physiologists had begun work on a project ‘cloning the chicken LHRH gene…’ in which the result was the ‘molecular cloning of chicken prolactin.’ It was hoped that the ‘cloning of the chicken prolactin gene will make it possible to produce recombinant derived material for physiological studies and create opportunities for investigating immunopharmacological methods for the prevention of broodiness.’ Evidently, ’knowledge of the nucleotide sequence of the gene made it possible to predict the amino acid sequence of this hormone which had not been previously established’ and ‘the predicted amino acid sequence has been used to generate this plot of the structure of chicken prolactin showing hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions. (Photo: Figure 5, p. 25)

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