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Development of amplified fragment length polymorphism (ALFP) and its application to animal genome mapping and farm animal selection

Objective



The overall objective of the project is to demonstrate the utility of AFLP to animal breeding industries. An understanding of the underlying basis of variation at the gene level provides opportunities to increase the rate of genetic improvement achieved by selective breeding. Molecular biology is presently being rapidly adopted by plant improvement industries. Plant breeders have a number of advantages over their animal counterparts in terms of applying this new technology. Population structures and the large numbers of individuals within them provide excellent material for gene mapping and trait analysis. In addition, there are numerous sources of exotic germplasm that can be utilised to increase variation and to introduce new commercially valuable traits. Not surprisingly, animal breeding industries have been slower to exploit the potential of this technology.
The development of genome maps for a number of animal species provides new tools of potential value for the improvement of farm animal selection. However, the information currently produced has not been applied due to the nature of the technology and the model structure of the populations used to produce these maps (e.g. divergent crosses using extreme populations such as wild boar). AFLP provides a technique with which to rapidly produce more cost effective markers and identify economically important genes directly in commercial breeding populations (the association between a marker and a trait may not be maintained between model and commercial populations. It offers the opportunity to develop a new set of solutions, which will be synergistic with the tools developed to date, to overcome existing technical hurdles and to establish a significant competitive advantage for European animal breeding industries. The project will concentrate on the interface between molecular biology (gene mapping) and quantitative genetics to create a new discipline of molecular breeding. In order to ensure the greatest chance of success, this project will utilise the pig as a demonstration species. This will maximise the use of information already created by previous EC funded research (PiGMaP). The skills of the partners involved compliment each other and combine expertise in these areas. Keygene has developed AFLP to date successfully, but solely, for plant species. PIC (a wholly owned subsidiary of Dalgety plc) is the world's leading pig breeding company and has pioneered the use of DNA technology to assist genetic selection.
The project will focus on:
1. The development of specific AFLP markers for commercial pig lines. 2. The use of such markers to search for quantitative economic trait loci (QTL).
3. The validation of AFLP markers for QTL in other lines as well as the original lines.
4. The integration of AFLP markers with existing genetic markers (e.g. PiGMaP) to extend the gene maps of farm animals.
5. The integration of AFLP information into marker assisted selection systems for single traits to enhance the selection process.
6. The development of new systems to utilise multiple markers to provide a method of polygenic trait selection in order to develop a basis for molecular breeding.

Call for proposal

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Coordinator

Dalgety plc
EU contribution
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Address
Station Road
CB1 2JN Cambridge
United Kingdom

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Total cost
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Participants (1)