Sex determination in the canary based on the CHD gene located at the sex chromosome using feather

The aim of this research was to utilize a simple, rapid, cheap and safe method for sex determination of newly born canaries through feather to help accurately breeding this bird. The external morphology of males and females of many birds such as canary are fairly similar to each other, Therefore, determining their sexes is very difficult. The different length of CHD (chromo-helicase-DNA-binding) gene in Z and W chromosomes can recignized by using molecular technique based and PCR method, for the sex determination of young birds. In this study, blood and feathers samples of 140 canaries from 10 different breeds were used and their DNA were extracted. It should be mentioned that for PCR, at first 5 primers designed and finally 1 specific primer were confirmed and used. The results showed that the amplification of a fragment with the length of 252 bp for males (ZZ) and two fragments with the lengths of 252 and 309 bp for female (ZW). The bands had a length difference of 57 bp. The DNA sequencing of these two fragments was done for the first time, the sequence of these two fragments of the CHD gene in canary species was submitted and accepted in the NCBI site under the names of CHDZ-1 and CHDW-1 with the accession numbers of MG679825.1 and MG679826.1.