Livestock 2.0 – genome editing for fitter, healthier, and more productive farmed animals

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Abstract

The human population is growing, and as a result we need to produce more food whilst reducing the impact of farming on the environment. Selective breeding and genomic selection have had a transformational impact on livestock productivity, and now transgenic and genome-editing technologies offer exciting opportunities for the production of fitter, healthier and more-productive livestock. Here, we review recent progress in the application of genome editing to farmed animal species and discuss the potential impact on our ability to produce food.

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Prediction of Total Genetic Value Using Genome-Wide Dense Marker Maps

T Meuwissen, B. Hayes, M. E. Goddard (2001)

Recent advances in molecular genetic techniques will make dense marker maps available and genotyping many individuals for these markers feasible. Here we attempted to estimate the effects of ∼50,000 marker haplotypes simultaneously from a limited number of phenotypic records. A genome of 1000 cM was simulated with a marker spacing of 1 cM. The markers surrounding every 1-cM region were combined into marker haplotypes. Due to finite population size (Ne = 100), the marker haplotypes were in linkage disequilibrium with the QTL located between the markers. Using least squares, all haplotype effects could not be estimated simultaneously. When only the biggest effects were included, they were overestimated and the accuracy of predicting genetic values of the offspring of the recorded animals was only 0.32. Best linear unbiased prediction of haplotype effects assumed equal variances associated to each 1-cM chromosomal segment, which yielded an accuracy of 0.73, although this assumption was far from true. Bayesian methods that assumed a prior distribution of the variance associated with each chromosome segment increased this accuracy to 0.85, even when the prior was not correct. It was concluded that selection on genetic values predicted from markers could substantially increase the rate of genetic gain in animals and plants, especially if combined with reproductive techniques to shorten the generation interval.

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The genome sequence of taurine cattle: a window to ruminant biology and evolution.

Christine G Elsik, Ross L Tellam, Kim C. Worley … (2009)

To understand the biology and evolution of ruminants, the cattle genome was sequenced to about sevenfold coverage. The cattle genome contains a minimum of 22,000 genes, with a core set of 14,345 orthologs shared among seven mammalian species of which 1217 are absent or undetected in noneutherian (marsupial or monotreme) genomes. Cattle-specific evolutionary breakpoint regions in chromosomes have a higher density of segmental duplications, enrichment of repetitive elements, and species-specific variations in genes associated with lactation and immune responsiveness. Genes involved in metabolism are generally highly conserved, although five metabolic genes are deleted or extensively diverged from their human orthologs. The cattle genome sequence thus provides a resource for understanding mammalian evolution and accelerating livestock genetic improvement for milk and meat production.

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A mutation creating a potential illegitimate microRNA target site in the myostatin gene affects muscularity in sheep.

Alex Clop, Fabienne Marcq, Haruko Takeda … (2006)

Texel sheep are renowned for their exceptional meatiness. To identify the genes underlying this economically important feature, we performed a whole-genome scan in a Romanov x Texel F2 population. We mapped a quantitative trait locus with a major effect on muscle mass to chromosome 2 and subsequently fine-mapped it to a chromosome interval encompassing the myostatin (GDF8) gene. We herein demonstrate that the GDF8 allele of Texel sheep is characterized by a G to A transition in the 3' UTR that creates a target site for mir1 and mir206, microRNAs (miRNAs) that are highly expressed in skeletal muscle. This causes translational inhibition of the myostatin gene and hence contributes to the muscular hypertrophy of Texel sheep. Analysis of SNP databases for humans and mice demonstrates that mutations creating or destroying putative miRNA target sites are abundant and might be important effectors of phenotypic variation.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Mick Watson:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4211-0358

mick.watson@roslin.ed.ac.uk

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Genome Biol

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Genome Biol

Title: Genome Biology

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Print): 1474-7596

ISSN (Electronic): 1474-760X

Publication date (Electronic): 26 November 2018

Publication date PMC-release: 26 November 2018

Publication date Collection: 2018

Volume: 19

Electronic Location Identifier: 204

Affiliations

ISNI 0000 0004 1936 7988, GRID grid.4305.2, The Roslin Institute and R(D)SVS, , University of Edinburgh, ; Easter Bush, Midlothian, EH25 9RG UK

Author information

Mick Watson http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4211-0358

Article

Publisher ID: 1583

DOI: 10.1186/s13059-018-1583-1

PMC ID: 6258497

PubMed ID: 30477539

SO-VID: 8f67dbf3-0b58-42e3-b7d9-d75db6c6bd5d

License:

Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

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Funding

Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000268, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council;

Award ID: BB/P013732/1, BB/P013740/1, BB/P013759/1, BB/R004463/1

Award Recipient : Mick Watson

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Genetics

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Genetics

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Livestock 2.0 – genome editing for fitter, healthier, and more productive farmed animals

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Genome Integrity

Most cited references 93

Prediction of Total Genetic Value Using Genome-Wide Dense Marker Maps

The genome sequence of taurine cattle: a window to ruminant biology and evolution.

A mutation creating a potential illegitimate microRNA target site in the myostatin gene affects muscularity in sheep.

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