Construction of bacterial artificial chromosome libraries for the Lake Malawi cichlid (Metriaclima zebra), and the blind cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus)

Teleost fishes have become important models for studying the evolution of the genetic mechanisms of development. A key resource for comparative genomics and positional cloning are large-insert libraries constructed in bacterial artificial chromosomes. We have constructed bacterial artificial chromosome libraries for two species of teleost fish that are important models for the study of developmental evolution. Metriaclinta zebra is one of several hundred closely related, morphologically diverse, haplochromine cichlids which have evolved over the last one million years in Lake Malawi, East Africa. The Mexican tetra, Astyanax mexicanus, is well known for adaptations related to the recent evolution of blind cave-dwelling forms. Clones and high-density filters for each library are available to the scientific community through the Hubbard Center for Genome Studies.