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The evolutionary history of domestic chicken has been subjected to debate since Charles Darwin first proposed the red junglefowl Gallus gallus sppas its sole ancestor. However, molecular evidence of introgression from the gray junglefowl G. sonneratiiin the form of the yellow skin locus (Eriksson et al., 2008) and success in producing fertile offspring from Gallus spphybrids (Danforth,1958; Morejohn, 1968) has challenged the single species origin for the domestic chicken. In this project, we analyzed the full genomes of 50 birds, including: 4 junglefowl species, indigenous chickens from Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, and Saudi Arabia, as well as European fancy chicken for evidence of introgression from G. sonneratii, G. lafayetii, and/or G. varius. Using the pooled heterozygosity (Rubin et al., 2010), ABBA-BABA (Martin et al., 2013) and Fst(Weir and Cockerham, 1984) statistics, we identified several candidate regions of introgression from G. sonneratiiand G. lafayetiiinto domestic chicken and vice versa. These regions represent new genomic landmarks of the selection pressures that have shaped the genome of domestic chicken and may provide us with new insights on the history of the geographical dispersion of domestic chicken populations.

Metallic nanoparticles (MNP) with diameters ranging from 2 to 100nm have received extensive attention during the past decades due to their many potential applications. This paper presents a structural and cytotoxicity study of silver metal nanoparticles targeted towards biomedical applications. Spherical Ag MNPs of diameter from 20 to 50 nm have been synthesized. The encapsulation of Ag MNPs inside pH-sensitive polymersomes has been also studied for the development of biomedical applications. A cytotoxicity study of the Ag MNPs against primary prostatic cancer cell line (PPC-1) has demonstrated a high mortality rate for concentrations ranging from 100 to 200mg/L. The paper will discuss the potential for therapeutic treatments of these Ag MNPs.