SheepGenomics and the international sheep genomics consortium

Abstract

SheepGenomics is a strategic investment by Meat & Livestock Australia and Australian Wool Innovation Limited and 11 Australian and New Zealand research organizations to deliver tangible outcomes from genomics research to the sheep industry. The overall strategy of SheepGenomics is to 'find useful genes and put them to work'. To achieve this has required the development of significant resources including a half-sib design mapping flock using over 16 industry sires and 4 sires from previous QTL studies to generate and extensively phenotype from 200 to 400 progeny/sire. The original intent was to genotype the progeny using a limited number of microsatellite markers and then fine-map selected progeny to discover genes for use in industry breeding programs and for further study. Development of genomic resources for sheep has proceeded to the stage where it is now becoming practical to genotype the progeny of the Sheep Genomics flock with tens of thousands of SNPs and use the outputs to derive genome selection derived breeding values (in addition to many new QTL). This change in strategy and deliverables would not have been possible without a substantial contribution from the International Sheep Genomics Consortium (ISGC) to develop sheep-specific genomic information in the public domain. The ISGC has been instrumental in developing a sheep BAC library, its end sequencing and alignment against other genomes. This has resulted in development of a virtual sheep genome, which in turn underpins current activities to discover and use tens of thousands of ordered sheep SNPs.