Media engagement is rapidly driving interest in a new genetic selection breeding method developed by scientists working in Griffin Lab, Division of Natural Sciences.<\/p>\n
To date, more than 2,000 elite animals\u00a0have been screened\u00a0using a\u00a0newly developed test\u00a0that enables the\u00a0removal of\u00a0a major cause of reduced litter size\u00a0in\u00a0pigs (and low pregnancy rates in cattle)\u00a0by eliminating affected animals from breeding programmes.<\/p>\n
Imbalance\u00a0of the genome (so called chromosome abnormality\u00a0resulting from a change in the number and\/or structure of chromosomes)\u00a0in the sperm of boars and bulls used for artificial insemination, has been an ongoing concern of the pig and cattle industry for over 40 years.\u00a0Males\u00a0with\u00a0certain types of\u00a0chromosome\u00a0abnormalities\u00a0are sub-fertile and typically produce sperm\u00a0with huge extra or missing parts of the genome. This leads to reduced pregnancy rates, pregnancy loss and stillborn offspring.<\/p>\n
Traditional\u00a0types of\u00a0screening from the blood of elite sires have\u00a0typically prevented the sperm of affected males entering breeding programmes\u00a0but many abnormalities have been missed.\u00a0Darren\u00a0Griffin and\u00a0Becky\u00a0O\u2019Connor\u2019s research sought to address\u00a0this problem,\u00a0and\u00a0together\u00a0they successfully\u00a0developed\u00a0a\u00a0new\u00a0method that more readily detects\u00a0chromosome\u00a0abnormalities\u00a0in male pigs.\u00a0This\u00a0unique approach\u00a0uses\u00a0multiple fluorescent\u00a0\u201ctags\u201d\u00a0that\u00a0highlight\u00a0DNA sequences at\u00a0the end of each chromosome. Rapid adoption by leading European pig\u00a0and cattle\u00a0breeders led to a programme of routine screening (to date more than 2,000 boars\u00a0and 200 bulls).<\/p>\n
Research demonstrated that the new\u00a0approach requires minimal analysis training (unlike traditional\u00a0approaches\u00a0which requires specialist knowledge),\u00a0easily detects up to twice as many abnormal boars and six times as many affected bulls.\u00a0This basic screening approach has received considerable press attention,\u00a0and financial income generated from its use\u00a0supports the careers of post-doctoral researchers and PhD students.<\/p>\n
The research also led to quite a fun aspect of the work in that the same fluorescent tagging technique (called \u201cFISH\u201d) has been used on birds and turtles. Why? Well, birds and turtles share a common\u00a0ancestor (called\u00a0Eunotosaurus<\/i>) that lived around 260 million years ago. If we trace the evolutionary line from\u00a0Eunotosaurus\u00a0<\/i>to modern birds,\u00a0we are into dinosaur territory. What Darren\u2019s lab (again, Becky took the lead on this) were able to do was to make reasonable assumptions about what the overall genomic structure of most dinosaurs looked like. When this work was published in 2018 it received\u00a0much\u00a0press attention\u00a0including a BBC report. Darren has given\u00a0a\u00a0public talk on this work entitled \u201cJurassic Spark: Mapping the Genomes of Dinosaurs\u201d, to the general public, to schools and university recruitment events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"