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Pig Genome Newsletter #004
PIG GENOME UPDATE No. 4
January 1, 1994
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The National Animal Genome Research Program and NC-210 Meetings were held in
Salt Lake City on November 17-19. Overall the meetings were an excellent forum
to discuss the progress in gene mapping and plans for future collaboration. The
meeting began with an informal reception and was followed by an introduction
from Dr. Harris Lewin and guest talks by Drs. Chris Haley from PiGMaP, Roger
Stone from MARC and Ina Hoeschele from VPI. Chris overviewed the excellent
collaboration of the PiGMaP people from the 18 participating labs and showed
results from a few chromosomes. He also discussed some plans for future
collaboration and encouraged labs in the U.S. to participate. Roger gave an
overview of the MARC effort in gene mapping in several species and, though he
did not reveal many particulars he said that results would be published in the
near future. He also discussed research database development and marker
development at MARC. Ina finished up the night with a technical talk on QTLs
and programs and methods to measure QTL effects.
The next morning was devoted to the NC-210 meeting. In this meeting some
procedural matters were discussed. It was decided that the chair of NC-210
would also serve as the chair of the swine species committee. Dr. Michael
Misfeldt was elected the new chair and Dr. Joan Lunney was elected secretary.
The secretary position also serves as chair-elect for the following year. After
this was completed a guest talk by Chris Haley on QTL effects was presented.
Chris did an very good job discussing the magnitude of the experiments needed
to determine QTLs for some traits. Station reports were next given from the
participating stations that attended. These included the Illinois, Iowa,
Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin, Oklahoma stations and the
federal lab at Beltsville (BARC). There were excellent results from the labs
that reported. Illinois reported efforts to move ahead on QTL research,
primarily with reproductive traits in their resource family. Iowa reported on
the mapping of many genes in conjunction with PiGMaP and the production of
muscle and spleen ESTs. Massachusetts discussed successful efforts to make a
cosmid library. Minnesota discussed efforts related to the Hal locus and their
research on mapping IL-4 and IL-6 and research on methods to immortalize swine
cells. They are also working with BARC on microsatellite development especially
for markers on chromosome 6. At Missouri research has centered on the swine T
cell receptor and the immortalization of some T cell lines. Wisconsin discussed
research on establishing some PCR based markers and development of families for
QTL research. The USDA-BARC station discussed disease resistance and chromosome
sorting research. Oklahoma discussed its interest in pig gene mapping and
research to investigate if mouse markers could be useful in swine. Two
additional reports, one from USDA-NADC on research on disease loci on
chromosome 6 and one from Kansas on efforts to develop new methods for physical
mapping, were presented in written form. After Station reports, Dr. Neal
Jorgensen, administrative advisor for NC-210 and Dr. Dick Frahm, CSRS
representative for the NAGRP, presented some remarks on collaboration and
cooperation. I also presented information on the coordinator's activities,
especially U.S. and PiGMaP reference family DNA and microsatellite development.
The afternoon session contained reports from Dr. Dick Frahm and Dr. Henry
Shands, Director of the National Genetics Resources Program in USDA. The
overall program and budget of $380,000 was discussed. An overall chair (Dr.
Larry Schook) and secretary (Dr. Susan Lamont) were elected for this year. A
meeting date of September 22-23, 1994 was selected for next year's meeting. The
final reports for the afternoon were from the species coordinators and were
related to progress on databases, marker sharing, reference families and
international cooperation. All species and their coordinators are making
excellent progress in their efforts. The final talk was by Dr. Alan Hillyard
who explained the features of the public databases he is helping to develop
(see comments below). The following day the NC-210 meeting resumed with
discussion on points raised the previous day. On the database development there
was discussion on why all the species will have a similar format and the need
to discuss research databases at a later time. Discussion continued on the
choice of microsatellites to be shared. This discussion was useful for the
coordinator. Future objectives and ideas for collaboration were discussed.
These included physical mapping, reference families, markers, workshops and the
development of a QTL project. A committee was suggested to discuss possible QTL
projects and include Drs. Charles Louis, Archie Clutter, Gary Rohrer and David
Meeker. They plan to collect ideas and meet in March. There were final wrap-ups
by the chairs of NC-209 and NC-210 and they were thanked for their efforts in
putting on the meeting. The last afternoon the executive committee for the
NAGRP met and discussed budgets and other administrative activities. Reports
from each of the species will be prepared and hopefully distributed in late
February or early March. Anyone wishing to get a copy of my coordinator's
report please write or call for a copy. Finally let me say that I think the
meetings went well. All participants are thanked for their efforts. I will be
visiting often with the new chair, Dr. Michael Misfeldt, and others to keep the
collaboration and cooperation on a continued positive track.
USPIGBASE Enrollment: At the meeting in Salt Lake all the species coordinators
met with their committees and initial databases were agreed upon. Each database
will be similar to the mouse database. We have been working closely with Dr.
Alan Hillyard in designing the pig database to meet everyone's needs. The
database will be called USPIGBASE and you can enroll by sending the attached
brown enrollment sheet to me. I will then send you all you need to get started.
Initially the displays will be modest but eventually for those with advanced
hardware the map displays should be extremely powerful. At present the database
is relatively empty but as more is published the database will grow.
Microsatellite Distribution: We began distributing the first 25 pairs of
microsatellites. These are on 13 chromosomes and there is more than one marker
on 8 of the chromosomes. All of the microsatellites are published and
additional microsatellite markers will be chosen soon from newly published
information. For further information or to request them, contact me by phone or
by E-mail at mfrothsc@iastate.edu.
Meetings with the Industry continue to be an important aspect of this effort. A
couple of weeks ago I met with members of the National Swine Improvement
Federation in St. Louis. About 75 people attended including various producers,
industry and breeding company representatives, extension and university
personnel. At the meeting I presented an update on the coordination effort and
the progress on gene mapping in the pig. Also of note is that one important
decision that was reached at the Salt Lake meeting of the NAGRP was that
industry personnel are welcome at all future species committee meetings except
for the business portion of the meeting. We hope industry people will join us
next year.
Dr. Lizhen Wang will be joining our group to help in the coordination effort.
Her primary responsibility will be to assist with information to place in the
database and to assist me. She has her Ph.D. from Guelph and is completing a
postdoctoral stay at VPI.
Conferences and Workshops: Several conferences involving gene identification
and gene mapping are coming up. For details about a comparative gene mapping
conference in Norway in February, please contact Dr. Harris Lewin by E-mail at
Blood@uiucvmd.bitnet. On May 4, in St. Louis, just before Poultry Breeders
Roundtable (May 5-6), Iowa State University's Animal Breeding and Genetics
group in the Department of Animal Science will co-host a conference with
NCR-150 on "Future Genetics for the Animal Industry" for industry and
university personnel. This conference will cover gene mapping and QTL research
and will be directed towards developing more interactions with industry. For
details please contact Dr. Gene Freeman at Iowa State University. Two workshops
are in the planning stage. The first is a workshop on quantitative trait loci
(QTL) and is being planned as part of the 5th World Congress on Genetics
Applied to Livestock Improvement which will be held in Guelph, Canada the first
week of August. The second workshop, also in the planning stage, will be on
Chromosome 6 and will most likely take place at about the same time as the next
NAGRP meeting in September 1994. More details will follow later. As coordinator
I will be assisting the planners as needed and supporting in a monetary fashion
both workshops. If you have good ideas for a workshop don't hesitate to throw
them out for discussion.
Over 150 people are now on ANGENMAP, the E-mail discussion group. If you have a
question, comment, or just want to see what people think, you need only to
direct your inquiry to ANGENMAP@IASTATE.EDU and the rest of the people will see
it.
Grant Deadlines: You still have time for several of the National Research
Initiative grant deadlines. Relative to this group's interests, they are: Jan.
18 - Sustaining Animal Health and Well Being; March 6 - Improving Animal Growth
and Development and March 6 - Identifying Genetic Mechanisms and Gene Mapping.
Research career enhancement awards, equipment grants and seed grants are all
due Feb. 22.
Chinese Pig Agreement: There will be a meeting between the parties in early
January, hopefully to resolve outstanding differences.
Join the International PiGMaP Effort: Permits to import PiGMaP family DNA from
the U.K., French, Swedish and now the Dutch families (91 F2 individuals) have
been obtained. Some labs have already asked for transfer permits to allow
transferring of DNA. If interested, please contact me.
Human Genome News: There is some very good information which may be of help for
you with your research or in the classroom. For this information, please write
HGMIS, Mailing Address, Betty K. Mansfield, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O.
Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6050.
Contributions to Pig Genome Update are always welcome. Please send by the 15th
of the month.
HAVE A HAPPY, HEALTHY AND PRODUCTIVE NEW YEAR !!
Max F. Rothschild
Swine Genome Coordinator
225 Kildee Hall
Department of Animal Science
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa 50011
Phone: 515-294-6202 or 3629
Fax: 515-294-2401
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