Molecular Bird Sexing on Fischeri Lovebird (Agapornis fischeri) by Using Polymerase Chain Reaction

Abstract

Fischeri Lovebird (Agapornis fischeri) found originally in Africa which has spread to many countries. In Indonesia, Fischeri Lovebird is popular as a pet animal. This lovebird is a monomorphic bird, so it is difficult to differentiate morphologically between male and female birds. In general, a male lovebird has ZZ homozygotes, whereas females' lovebird has ZW heterozygous of their sex chromosome. These sex chromosomes set used as study targets for molecular bird sexing of many species of birds because this method is effective and simple to perform. This method targeted to amplify the Chromodomain Helicase DNA-binding (CHD) gene, which found into the sex chromosome of male and female birds. The objective of this study was to rapid molecular bird sexing of Fischeri Lovebird by using PCR methods. Research samples were collected from feather calamus of A. fischeri. The total sample was 11 feathers from A. fischeri. which were collected three to six feathers for each lovebird. Then the research was followed by DNA extraction from calamus feathers, DNA amplification by PCR and agarose gel electrophoresis of PCR products and visualization of PCR predicts by UV-Transilluminator in darkroom. It concluded that PCR amplification using NP, MP and P2 primers produced double DNA bands in size of 400 bp on Z chromosome and bp on W chromosome for female Fischeri Lovebird, whereas for male Fischeri Lovebird only produced a single DNA band in size of 400 bp on Z chromosome. From eleven samples of Fischeri Lovebird showed a total of five females and six male Fischeri Lovebirds.