Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) is a species of considerable economic
importance in a number of countries [Minvielle et al. 2004]. Moreover it is frequently
used as a model laboratory animal [Kayang et al. 2004]. Generaly, birds have a constant
number of chromosomes and show relatively low susceptibility to chromosome
rearrangements [Kayang et al. 2006]. Japanese quail and chicken are closely related.
Both species have a karyotype of 2n=78 chromosomes and a similar genome length
of 1.2×109
bp [Kayang et al. 2004]. It was shown that except for chromosomes 1, 2,
4 and 8, the location and the order of genes in the Japanese quail genome was similar
to those in chicken genome [Shibusawa et al. 2001].