Copy Number Variation in Intron 1 of SOX5 Causes the Pea-comb Phenotype in Chickens

Abstract

Pea-comb is a dominant mutation in chickens that drastically reduces the size of the comb and wattles. It is an adaptive trait in cold climates as it reduces heat loss and makes the chicken less susceptible to frost lesions. Here we report that Pea-comb is caused by a massive amplification of a duplicated sequence located near evolutionary conserved non-coding sequences in intron 1 of the gene encoding the SOX5 transcription factor. This must be the causative mutation since all other polymorphisms associated with the Pea-comb allele were excluded by genetic analysis. SOX5 controls cell fate and differentiation and is essential for skeletal development, chondrocyte differentiation, and extracellular matrix production. Immunostaining in early embryos demonstrated that Pea-comb is associated with ectopic expression of SOX5 in mesenchymal cells located just beneath the surface ectoderm where the comb and wattles will subsequently develop. The results imply that the duplication expansion interferes with the regulation of SOX5 expression during the differentiation of cells crucial for the development of comb and wattles. The study provides novel insight into the nature of mutations that contribute to phenotypic evolution and is the first description of a spontaneous and fully viable mutation in this developmentally important gene.

Author Summary

The featherless comb and wattles are defining features of the chicken. Whilst the Pea-comb allele was known to show a dominant inheritance and drastically reduce the size of both comb and wattles, the genetics underlying the mutation remained elusive. Chicken comb is primarily composed of collagen and hyaluronan, which are produced by chondrocytes. These cells are formed through the condensation and differentiation of mesenchyme cells during the chondrogenesis pathway, the early stages of which are regulated by SOX transcription factors. Here we pinpoint a massive amplification of a duplicated sequence in the first intron of SOX5 as causing the Pea-comb phenotype. By studying early embryos, we show that SOX5 is ectopically expressed during a restricted stage of development in the cells which underlie the comb and wattles of Pea-comb animals. We hypothesise that the sequence duplication alters the regulation of SOX5 expression when the differentiation of cells essential for comb and wattle development is taking place. Pea-comb adds to the growing list of phenotypic variation which is explained by regulatory mutations and so demonstrates the evolutionary significance of such events.