The Short 3′-End Region of Complementary DNAs as PCR-Based Polymorphic Markers for an Expression Map of the Mouse Genome

Ideal markers for a complementary DNA (cDNA) map of the mouse genome should be amplifiable by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and they should be polymorphic for genetic mapping, as well as unique for physical mapping. In our search for such markers, we did comparative sequencing of PCR-amplified genomic DNAs derived from 15 inbred strains and found that about 250 bp of the 3′-end region (3′-ER) of cDNAs, which is the sequence immediately upstream from the poly(A) tail, was polymorphic enough to distinguish the allele of a laboratory strain from that of a wild strain (Mus spretus) in 14 of 22 cDNAs tested. Specifically, in 9 of these 14 cDNAs, each allele was identified by the restriction fragment length polymorphism. This data indicates that about 65% of the 3′-ERs of cDNAs can be automatically transformed into PCR-based genetic markers named “biallelic polymorphic expressed sequence tags (bESTs).” These markers can be easily and precisely mapped by typing of the panels of interspecific backcrosses. Because a large number of bEST markers can be efficiently obtained by a single-run automated sequencing of randomly selected cDNAs, these markers will greatly facilitate the construction of high-resolution genetic and physical maps of expressed sequences of the mouse genome.