Professor's Research Provides Clues to Evolution, Better Beef and Milk
April 24, 2009
In an article published today by the journal Science, an international research consortium presents the genome sequence of taurine cattle, the first livestock mammal to have its genetic blueprint sequenced and analyzed. The landmark research, supported in part by Christine Elsik, assistant professor in Georgetown University’s biology department, provides new information about mammalian evolution as well as cattle-specific biology. It also points the way to research that could result in more sustainable food production in a world challenged by global population growth.
Researchers from the Bovine Genome Sequencing and Analysis Consortium estimate that the genome of the cow (Bos taurus) contains approximately 22,000 genes and shares about 80 percent of its genes with humans. The analyses, which involved comparing the cow genome sequence to those of the human, dog, mouse, rat, opossum and platypus, provide critical insights into the structure and function of the human genome.
“Human genes are more similar to cow genes than to genes of mice, commonly used in biomedical research, so the cow genome is likely to fill gaps in our understanding of human biology and disease,” said Elsik.
The findings will also assist researchers working to improve the quality and safety of beef and dairy products. Genomic information can be used to develop better strategies for treating and preventing diseases that affect cattle. Some of those diseases, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease, also can be transmitted to humans.
“The future challenge will be to explore the bovine genome sequence in greater depth to fully understand the genetic basis of the evolutionary success of ruminants as this will provide opportunities to address some of the crucial issues of the present time – efficient and sustainable food production for a rapidly increasing human population,” said Dr. Richard Gibbs, director of the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center and principal investigator on the project.”
The Bovine (Cow) Genome Sequencing Project sequenced the genome of a female Hereford cow, a breed used in beef production. The cattle sequence took six years to complete, annotate and analyze and involved over 300 scientists from 25 countries. Most of more than 25 companion reports describing detailed analyses associated with this project and with a related project by another international group, the Bovine Hapmap Consortium, appear online at www.biomedcentral.com in a special electronic issue of the BioMed Central journal group.
“The mammals we have looked at previously have been laboratory animals and humans,” said Kim Worley, associate professor in the sequencing center and a corresponding author. ”This is the first mammalian livestock animal we have studied.”
Elsik, who specializes in bioinformatics, led the group of scientists who ran computational analyses to identify the genes that encode proteins, which make up about one percent of the 2,870 million nucleotides in the cow genome. Her colleagues Roderic Guigó from Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Spain and Alexandre Reymond from University of Lausanne in Switzerland did laboratory experiments to validate the computational gene predictions.
Elsik also led the group of scientists who manually annotated the genome, and is in charge of the Bovine Genome Database (http://BovineGenome.org), which hosts gene model data submitted by 150 of the co-authors. The database is publicly available, and allows both scientists and the general public to query and download the genome and gene data.
Several Georgetown science students and post doctoral researchers helped to update the database and are listed among the paper’s authors.
The full report is available at www.sciencemag.org.
Researchers from the Bovine Genome Sequencing and Analysis Consortium estimate that the genome of the cow (Bos taurus) contains approximately 22,000 genes and shares about 80 percent of its genes with humans. The analyses, which involved comparing the cow genome sequence to those of the human, dog, mouse, rat, opossum and platypus, provide critical insights into the structure and function of the human genome.
“Human genes are more similar to cow genes than to genes of mice, commonly used in biomedical research, so the cow genome is likely to fill gaps in our understanding of human biology and disease,” said Elsik.
The findings will also assist researchers working to improve the quality and safety of beef and dairy products. Genomic information can be used to develop better strategies for treating and preventing diseases that affect cattle. Some of those diseases, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease, also can be transmitted to humans.
“The future challenge will be to explore the bovine genome sequence in greater depth to fully understand the genetic basis of the evolutionary success of ruminants as this will provide opportunities to address some of the crucial issues of the present time – efficient and sustainable food production for a rapidly increasing human population,” said Dr. Richard Gibbs, director of the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center and principal investigator on the project.”
The Bovine (Cow) Genome Sequencing Project sequenced the genome of a female Hereford cow, a breed used in beef production. The cattle sequence took six years to complete, annotate and analyze and involved over 300 scientists from 25 countries. Most of more than 25 companion reports describing detailed analyses associated with this project and with a related project by another international group, the Bovine Hapmap Consortium, appear online at www.biomedcentral.com in a special electronic issue of the BioMed Central journal group.
“The mammals we have looked at previously have been laboratory animals and humans,” said Kim Worley, associate professor in the sequencing center and a corresponding author. ”This is the first mammalian livestock animal we have studied.”
Elsik, who specializes in bioinformatics, led the group of scientists who ran computational analyses to identify the genes that encode proteins, which make up about one percent of the 2,870 million nucleotides in the cow genome. Her colleagues Roderic Guigó from Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Spain and Alexandre Reymond from University of Lausanne in Switzerland did laboratory experiments to validate the computational gene predictions.
Elsik also led the group of scientists who manually annotated the genome, and is in charge of the Bovine Genome Database (http://BovineGenome.org), which hosts gene model data submitted by 150 of the co-authors. The database is publicly available, and allows both scientists and the general public to query and download the genome and gene data.
Several Georgetown science students and post doctoral researchers helped to update the database and are listed among the paper’s authors.
The full report is available at www.sciencemag.org.
