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Pig Genome Newsletter #032
P I G G E N O M E U P D A T E
__________________________________________________________________
A Bimonthly Newsletter of the U.S. Pig Genome Coordination Program
*********** No. 32 ***********
* *
* <angenmap@iastate.edu> *
* September 1, 1998 *
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1. Denver was Packed with People and Ideas
2. Down Under was Top of the World - ISAG Report
3. The Pig Chromosome 13 Workshop at ISAG
4. Other Highlights Included Several Other Events and Programs
5. The Pig Gene Mapping Workshop at ISAG
6. Poster Sessions at ISAG
7. A Special Conference: From Jay Lush to Genomics
8. Meeting Updates
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DENVER WAS PACKED WITH PEOPLE AND IDEAS. The joint ASAS and ADSA meeting
attracted over 3,800 people for four and a half jammed days of symposiums,
talks and posters. Some of the highlights included sessions on transgenics
and one on cloning sponsored by the Animal Breeding and Genetics program
committee. The cloning workshop was attended by 400 people and included
talks on recent cloning updates (J. Woolliams), implications of cloning for
breed improvement strategies (L. D. Van Vleck), ethical issues in livestock
cloning (P. B. Thompson), cloning - an industry perspective (M. D. Bishop)
and a town-hall discussion. These papers will be published in the Journal
of Animal Science next year. Several other sessions dealing with QTLs, MAS
and gene discoveries, combined with great hospitality made it a super
meeting. Abstracts have been published in a JAS supplement.
o o o o o o o o o o o
DOWN UNDER WAS TOP OF THE WORLD. The 26th International Society of Animal
Genetics meeting in Auckland, New Zealand was held August 9-14th. The
meeting was attended by over 400 delegates and included 16 plenary talks,
17 workshops and over 325 posters. These are in part published in the
proceedings and will be published in a later version of Animal Genetics.
The organizing committee, chaired by Dr. Ian Anderson, and the scientific
committee, chaired by Dr. Tom Broad, all deserve a tremendous thanks for
not only their hospitality but the superb quality of the meeting.
Highlights of the meeting are presented below.
o o o o o o o o o o o
LUCKY 13! THE PIG CHROMOSOME 13 WORKSHOP WAS A GREAT BEGINNING! A
workshop on Pig Chromosome 13 was held on Sunday, August 9, 1998.
Approximately 40 people attended the workshop sessions.
The first session included talks by Alan Archibald, Lee Alexander, and
Deryl Troyer. Alan reported the integration of the PiGMaP-Nordic-MARC
linkage maps, as well as integration of 99 additional AFLP markers, for a
total of 208 markers on the integrated SSC13 map. Lee discussed the
current status of the INRA-Minnesota Radiation Hybrid Panel, which has 757
markers in 187 linkage groups across all chromosomes, and 66 markers in 17
linkage groups on SSC13. Deryl reported that he has been successful in
placing several microsatellites on the map using chromosome
microdissection, as well as mapping loci by on-slide PCR using improved
signal amplification techniques.
The second session had talks on the SSC13 comparative map by Luc Peelman,
Martine Yerle, and Chris Tuggle. Luc presented mapping of 10 HSA3 loci to
SSC13 by FISH. Martine discussed using the Toulouse Somatic Cell Hybrid
Panel (SCHP), porcine YAC/BAC FISH and heterologous FISH techniques to map
an additional 26 HSA3 genes to SSC13. Chris reported the mapping of five
HSA21 genes by SCHP, BAC FISH and Radiation Hybrid panel mapping. He also
summarized the SSC13 cytogenetic map from this new workshop data. There
are now 46 comparative genes which show significant differences in gene
order between HSA3 and SSC13, but conserved order between HSA21 and SSC13.
The third session concerned QTL/ETL analyses involving SSC13. Luc Peelman
presented a detailed map of the K88ab/ac locus, where he has identified new
microsatellite loci localizing K88 to a 2 cm region. One marker showed no
recombination with K88 and this marker was used as a starting point to
develop a BAC contig for positional cloning of the K88 gene. Max
Rothschild then presented a QTL analysis of the region around the POU1F1
(formerly PIT1) gene, which had previously been linked to early growth and
carcass measurements. Backfat measures were significantly associated with
the region near SWR1008, but clearly not POU1F1 which mapped 21 cm distant.
Birth weight, however, was closely linked to the POU1F1 locus, confirming
the original single marker association in this population. Several other
groups reported negative results in QTL scans of SSC13 (A. Archibald, G.
Moser). Thus, it is unclear if joint analysis would be useful and there
was a lively debate on this topic. Denis Milan then gave the Advanced
Technology Plenary lecture, providing the group with the integration of
technologies being used in the RN mapping project on chromosome 15.
The Chromosome 13 Workshop was supported by a USDA-NRI grant, the USDA NRSP
Pig Genome Coordination program and Pig Improvement Company (this report
kindly supplied by Chris Tuggle).
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDED SEVERAL OTHER EVENTS AND PROGRAMS. The meeting
kicked off with a great reception that began with renewing old acquaintances.
Then in New Zealand fashion, we were herded to the welcoming speeches by
two herding dogs and a shepherd. The warm welcome included some kind words
from our hosts and was followed by a traditional Maori "challenge". We
ended the evening with more conversation, food and beverages.
Plenary talks for the meeting included sessions on "Diversity" with talks
on evolution (D. Lambert), fitness markers (J. Pemberton), mutation
detection (R. Cotton) and marker assisted breeding programs (M. Walton).
The second day included talks on imprinting (R. Pederson), Callipyge (N.
Cockett), proteomics (A. Gooley), and ESTs (N. Jenkins). Internal mapping
(S. Davies), disease QTL (A. Crawford), the Inverdale fecundity gene (S.
Galloway) and ovine models for disease resistance (M. Broom) were on
Thursday. The final session included candidate genes as QTL (M. Soller),
markers in breeding programs (B. Kinghorn), applications and issues for MAS
(L. Andersson) and the report of the 2nd QTL workshop (G. Davis). Many of
these talks are summarized in abstracts.
In addition to the Chromosome 13 workshop, two other workshops were
devoted to pigs. The Pig Blood Groups Workshop was chaired by Prof. Jan
Meyer and included talks on disease resistance (Luc Peelman), meat quality
(Denis Milan), reproduction (Max Rothschild), and new techniques (Bertram
Brenig). Interesting discussions followed the presentations and it was
clear that the molecular genetic efforts have moved quickly in the last two
years. This brought about discussions on the need to rename this workshop
to be more inclusive of all technologies and to work more closely with the
other workshops.
o o o o o o o o o o o
THE PIG GENE MAPPING WORKSHOP DREW A VERY LARGE CROWD. Chaired by Alan
Archibald, it included overviews on linkage mapping (Alan Archibald) and RH
panel mapping (Martine Yerle, Denis Milan and Lee Alexander). Both reports
show that the maps are progressing well, and by including AFLP markers, the
linkage map will be nearly 3000 markers. The RH panel has nearly 900
markers (see the Chromosome 13 report above) and should be available in the
near future for other researchers. A review of QTL and candidate gene
discovery progress was presented by Max Rothschild. Several new findings
include a new QTL for littersize on chromosome 8, one for growth on
chromosome 1 and other repeated QTLs for several traits suggest we are
finding and confirming several important chromosomal regions. Additional
overview research reports included a report on the chromosome 13 workshop
by Chris Tuggle (see above), and use of new technologies by Bertram Brenig.
Discussions of work at individual institutions and needs for the next few
years helped to complete an interesting afternoon. The new workshop
committee for the next two years will include Leif Andersson, Martine
Yerle, Max Rothschild, Alan Archibald, Chris Moran and Gary Rohrer (chair).
Ideas for the next workshop can be addressed to Gary or other committee
members.
o o o o o o o o o o o
POSTER SESSIONS WERE WELL ATTENDED AND INCLUDED MANY PIG POSTERS related
to comparative mapping, biodiversity, QTLs and candidate genes. Poster
awards were presented at the very nice conference dinner. These abstracts
will be published in the near future. Other workshops of interest also
included the Genetics of Immune Response Workshop, the other mapping
workshops and the Diversity Workshop. All in all, we had a great meeting
in New Zealand. Thanks again to all those who participated. We are all
looking forward to the next meeting, which will be in Minneapolis in 2000.
We need to keep being involved and help promote animal genome work. The
more we travel and discuss with our colleagues the more it is clear we as
animal genome scientists are making great progress. We need to continue to
inform the researchers, administrators and the public we work with of the
importance of genome research involving farm animals and aquaculture. A
recent letter to Nature by Dr. Michael Roberts emphasizes this nicely.
Lets continue to work towards the extra funding we all need.
o o o o o o o o o o o
A SPECIAL CONFERENCE: FROM JAY LUSH TO GENOMICS: Visions for Animal Breeding
and Genetics will be held May 16-18, 1999 at Iowa State University Ames, Iowa.
This not-to-be-missed conference will bring together quantitative and
molecular geneticists from industry, government, and academe to discuss the
future of animal breeding and genetics in light of changes in the fields of
molecular genetics and informatics. The program will feature eleven plenary
lectures by renowned international scientists and a poster session of current
research by participants. The schedule is arranged to encourage participant
interaction and discussion. Information on the program and speakers can be
seen at http://www.public.iastate.edu/~ans/graduate/visions.html.
o o o o o o o o o o o
MEETING UPDATES:
Transgenic Animal - 2nd International Conference, Beijing, China. Will be
held October 26-29, 1998. Contact ciccst@public.bta.net.cn.
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Methods in Genome Sequencing and Analysis, Heidelberg, Germany will be held
December 2-12, 1998. Contact Dr. W. Ansorge, EMBL at
ansorge@embl-heidelberg.de.
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Plant and Animal Genome VII; San Diego, CA, January 17-21, 1999; associated
with National Animal Genome Research Program meeting and NC-168 Regional
Research meeting. Information will eventually be available at
http://www.scherago.com.
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From Jay Lush to Genomics: Visions for Animal Breeding and Genetics will be
held May 16-18, 1999 at Iowa State University Ames, IA. Information at:
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~ans/graduate/visions.html.
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International Society of Animal Genetics , Minneapolis, MN, USA will be
held July 24-27, 2000. Contact Brian Kirkpatrick at
bwkirkpat@facstaff.wisc.edu.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Contributions to Pig Genome Update 33 including short meeting announcements
are always welcome. Please send by October 10.
Max Rothschild
U.S. Pig Genome Coordinator
225 Kildee Hall, Department of Animal Science
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa 50011
Phone: 515-294-6202, Fax: 515-294-2401
mfrothsc@iastate.edu
cc: Dick Frahm, CSREES and Roger Gerrits, ARS
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U.S. PIG GENOME COORDINATION PROJECT
+-----------------------------------+
| Paid for by funds from the NRSP-8 | http://www.public.iastate.edu/~pigmap
| USDA/CSREES sponsored Pig Genome |
| Coordination Program | Mailing list: angenmap@iastate.edu
+-----------------------------------+
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