This work yielded the draft sequence of a waterfowl - duck for the first time, and the data indicated that the duck, like the chicken and zebra finch, possessed a contractive
immune gene repertoire comparing to those in mammals, and it also comprises novel genes that are not present in the other three birds (chicken, zebra finch and turkey).
While it is not straightforward to directly compare the
immune repertoire reported here with previous reports that have used different underlying
gene models [15], [34], we do note that our inference about the number and identity of signaling components is consistent with previous annotations [15], [34], while our inference about recognition and effectors tends to reflect greater, albeit still relatively minor, differences.