A comprehensive radiation hybrid map of the bovine genome comprising 5593 loci

A bovine whole genome 7000-rad radiation hybrid (RH) panel, SUNbRH(7000-rad), was constructed to build a high-resolution RH map. The Shirakawa-USDA linkage map served as a scaffold to construct a framework map of 3216 microsatellites on which 2377 ESTs were ordered. The resulting RH map provided essentially complete coverage across the genome, with 1 cR7000 corresponding to 114 kb, and a cattle-human comparative map of 1716 bovine genes and sequences annotated in the human genome, which covered 79 and 72% of the bovine and human genomes, respectively. We then integrated the bovine RH and comparative maps with BAC fingerprint information in to construct a detailed, BAC-based physical map covering a reported 40-cM quantitative trait locus region for intramuscular fat or "marbling" on BTA 4. In summary, the new, high-resolution SUNbRH7000-rad, comparative, Shirakawa-USDA linkage, and BAC fingerprint maps provide a set of genomic tools for fine mapping regions of interest in cattle.