Zhou Wu

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Research fellow at Roslin Institute

The Zonotrichia sparrows, belonging to the Passerellidae family, are widely studied for their vocalizations and genetic diversity. Here, we present two high-quality genome assemblies for Zonotrichia species; the northern hemisphere Nuttall’s white-crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys nuttalli, NWCS) and the southern hemisphere rufous-collared sp...

Artificial light at night (ALAN) disrupts natural light-dark cycles, posing ecological challenges for wildlife in urban areas. Here we investigated the effects of ALAN on gene expression in the brain, liver, and skin of green anole lizards (Anolis carolinensis) whose urban populations are increasingly exposed to light pollution. To identify genetic...

Bangladeshi indigenous chicken varieties - Common Deshi, Hilly and Naked Neck are notable for their egg production, meat quality, extraordinary survivability and disease resistance. However, the potential to harness their unique genetic merits are being eroded by various factors, including crossbreeding. In-depth genomic studies have not been carri...

The potentially devastating effects of climate change have raised awareness of the need to understand how the biology of wild animals is influenced by extreme-weather events. We investigate how a wild arctic-breeding bird, the Lapland longspur (Calcarius lapponicus), responds to different environmental perturbations and its coping strategies. We ex...

The potentially devastating effects of climate change have raised awareness of the need to understand how the biology of wild animals is influenced by extreme-weather events. We investigate how a wild arctic-breeding bird, the Lapland longspur ( Calcarius lapponicus ), responds to different environmental perturbations and its coping strategies. We...

The white-crowned sparrow, Zonotrichia leucophrys, is a passerine bird with a wide distribution and it is extensively adapted to environmental changes. It has historically acted as a model species in studies on avian ecology, physiology and behaviour. Here, we present a high-quality chromosome-level genome of Zonotrichia leucophrys using PacBio and...

ASPA 25th Congress

The identification of the dwarf phenotype in chicken is based on body weight, height, and shank length, leaving the differentiation between dwarf and small breeds ambiguous. The aims of the present study were to characterize the sequence variations associated with the dwarf phenotype in three Italian chicken breeds and to investigate the genes asso...

Increases in chicken production are mainly due to specialised breeds. However, local breeds are of increasing importance, known for ability to adapt to the environment and unique products. Conventional poultry products contain lower levels of n‐3 fatty acids (FAs) compared to those obtained from local breeds, therefore the aim of this study was to...

The chicken continues to hold its position as a leading model organism within many areas of research, as well as a being major source of protein for human consumption. The First Report on Chicken Genes and Chromosomes [Schmid et al., 2000], which was published in 2000, was the brainchild of the late, and sadly missed, Prof Michael Schmid of the Uni...

Background In poultry, the population structure of local breeds is usually complex mainly due to unrecorded breeding. Local chicken breeds offer an interesting proxy to understand the complexity of population structure in the context of human-mediated development of diverse morphologies and varieties. We studied 37 traditional Dutch chicken breeds...

Despite the successful control of highly contagious tumorigenic Marek’s disease (MD) by vaccination, a continuous increase in MD virus (MDV) virulence over recent decades has put emphasis on the development of more MD-resistant chickens. The cell types and genes involved in resistance therefore need to be recognized. The virus is primarily lymphotr...

Background: The liver is the central metabolic organ of animals. In chicken, knowledge on the relationship between gene expression in the liver and fat deposition during development is still limited. A time-course transcriptomic study from the embryonic (day 12) to the egg-producing period (day 180 after hatch) was performed to profile slow-growing...

Familial thyroid cancer originating from follicular cells accounts for 5–15% of all the thyroid carcinoma cases in humans. Previously, we described thyroid follicular cell carcinomas in a large number of the Dutch German longhaired pointers (GLPs) with a likely autosomal recessive inheritance pattern. Here, we investigated the genetic causes of the...

The growth of animals is a complex trait, in chicken resulting in a diverse variety of forms, caused by a heterogeneous genetic basis. Bantam chicken, known as an exquisite form of dwarfism, has been used for crossbreeding to create corresponding dwarf counterparts for native fowls in the Dutch populations. Here we demonstrate the heterogeneity of...

The feather rate phenotype in chicks, including early-feathering and late-feathering phenotypes, are widely used as a sexing system in the poultry industry. The objective of this study was to obtain candidate genes associated with the feather rate in Shouguang chickens. In the present study, we collected 56 blood samples and 12 hair follicle sample...

Autosomal dwarfism (adw) in chickens is a growth deficiency caused by a recessive mutation. Characteristic for adw is an approximately 30% growth reduction with short shank. The adw variant was first recognized in the Cornell K-strain of White Leghorns, but the genetic causal variant remained unknown. To identify the causal variant underlying the a...