A test of somatic mosaicism in the androgen receptor gene of Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis)

BACKGROUND: The androgen receptor, an X-linked gene, has been widely studied in human populations because it contains highly polymorphic trinucleotide repeat motifs that have been associated with a number of adverse human health and behavioral effects. A previous study on the androgen receptor gene in carnivores reported somatic mosaicism in the tissues of a number of species including Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx). We investigated this claim in a closely related species, Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis). The presence of somatic mosaicism in lynx tissues could have implications for the future study of exonic trinucleotide repeats in landscape genomic studies, in which the accurate reporting of genotypes would be highly problematic. METHODS: To determine whether mosaicism occurs in Canada lynx, two lynx individuals were sampled for a variety of tissue types (lynx 1) and tissue locations (lynx 1 and 2), and 1,672 individuals of known sex were genotyped to further rule out mosaicism. RESULTS: We found no evidence of mosaicism in tissues from the two necropsied individuals, or any of our genotyped samples. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that mosaicism does not manifest in Canada lynx. Therefore, the use of hide samples for further work involving trinucleotide repeat polymorphisms in Canada lynx is warranted. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12863-015-0284-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.