A Steak in Genomics™

My group has posted a new preprint on bioRxiv .  You can check it out here:  https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.11.988121 Warning, it is written for a technical audience, not in cowboy terms. So- what are the take-home messages for farmers and ranchers? We can identify the DNA variants responding to your selection decisions. You tend to select cattle that have better immune systems. Hormone production in the ovaries is under selection in Red Angus. Makes sense based on the breed's focus on fertility. Muscle development is under selection in Gelbvieh.  We can identify the DNA variants that lead to cattle adapted to their environment Blood vessel tightening or loosening is under environmental selection. The brain and neuron signaling is an important part of environmental adaptation. We are losing local adaptation in beef cattle. Check out this Twitter thread to see figures from the paper. https://twitter.com/pop_gen_JED/status/1258786262149808131 Regarding the last point, we can fix the

Complex diseases such as BRDC involve the influence of many genes and are by definition hard to predict. Genomic heritability estimates of BRDC susceptibility in Holstein dairy calves is moderately heritable (0.21). The Single Nucleotide Polymorphism assays are finding genomic regions associated with BRDC susceptibility, suggesting that genetic progress in these traits could be made by including the specific SNP markers that are indicators of BRDC disease risk in national cattle genetic evaluations. Please see the fact sheet for more information.  http://www.extension.org/pages/73031/genetic-markers-of-bovine-respiratory-disease-complex-susceptibility#

Discovery about PRRS virus could save swine industry hundreds of millions of dollars; Exclusive deal signed with global leader in animal genetics COLUMBIA, Mo. ­— Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) virus was first detected in the U.S. in 1987. Pigs that contract the disease have extreme difficulty reproducing, don’t gain weight and have a high mortality rate. To date, no vaccine has been effective, and the disease costs North American farmers more than $660 million annually. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Missouri, Kansas State University, and Genus plc have bred pigs that are not harmed by the disease. Prather PRRS from MU News Bureau on Vimeo . “Once inside the pigs, PRRS needs some help to spread; it gets that help from a protein called CD163,” said Randall Prather, distinguished professor of animal sciences in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. “We were able to breed a litter of pigs that do not produce this pr

DNA Technology: Where we've been, where we are, and where we're headed Conference sponsored by the Beef Feed Efficiency grant, beefefficiency.org Meat Animal Research Center, Clay Center, NE Alison Van Eenennaam University of California-Davis Twitter: @biobeef The long-term goal of this project is to reduce the incidence of bovine respiratory disease (BRD) complex through genomic selection. We would not want to challenge our herd to see if they are susceptible or not; too many would end up dead! Genomics helps us select for traits that are difficult to measure or have a low heritability. But to create genomic predictions we need large populations, e.g. 1000s of animals, with phenotypes (trait measurements) and genotypes. BRD can be difficult to measure and quantify; the data can be noisy. Part of the focus of the project was a very careful definition of a sick animal. Temperature, cough, nasal drainage, eye scores, and ear scores were used to define whether or not an an

A new website dedicated to beef cattle genetics has been launched at the 2015 Beef Improvement Federation Conference. eBEEF.org is part of the national eXtension program with the goal of being a one-stop site for beef cattle genetics and genomics information. Beef cattle specialists from six land grant institutions have joined forces to provide educational materials that are pertinent to today’s beef cattle producers, without searching multiple sites or filtering through countless hits on a search. The site contains factsheets , short frequently asked question (FAQ) video clips, relevant conference recordings and webinars, a blog and links to other useful beef sites. One of the developers of the new site, Dr. Darrh Bullock at the University of Kentucky said “Often beef producers get frustrated when they search for information online and get information overload. We wanted to develop a user friendly site that provides information in a concise, understandable way without having

The "Bovine Respiratory Disease Symposium (BRDS) 2014: New Approaches to Bovine Respiratory Disease Prevention, Management and Diagnosis" is to be held at the Renaissance Denver Hotel in Denver, Colorado, USA from July 30th to July 31st, 2014. Registration is open and can be accessed, along with more information, at the Symposium website: http://www.brdsymposium.org The early registration deadline is June 15, 2014. The Symposium will include 2 days of presentations and discussions on a variety of topics relevant to BRDS. A research poster session will be held the first night. This meeting is being held in conjunction with the 2014  Summer Academy of Veterinary Consultants (AVC) meeting which will be held July 31st to August 2nd, 2014. We hope to see you there! As we previously noted , the Bovine Respiratory Disease Complex Coordinated Agricultural Project is using a variety of genetic analyses to better understand BRD and to predict an animal's genetic merit for

Dr. Jim Womack, from Texas A&M University, visited the University of Missouri supported by funds from the Chancellor . Womack has been a pioneer in the field of genomics, with significant work on livestock species. On May 28th, Womack discussed the Bovine Respiratory Disease USDA NIFA Coordinated Agriculture Project. The project just completed its third of five years of funding. Bovine Respiratory Disease has been researched since the 1800's, but despite more effective vaccines morbidity and mortality have not decreased. The long term goal of this project is to reduce the prevalence of BRD by selectively breeding resistant cattle using genomic technologies and by educating cattle producers to better manage the disease complex. The team is using nearly 3,000 dairy cattle genotyped at 700,000 DNA variants. These cattle have clinical scores for BRD symptoms and measurements of specific pathogen infection. In a case-control  data set, Holstein calves and heifers were identifi