Equine (Horse) Genome
Effort
The horse is primarily a pet and sport animal
with significant economic impact among the
livestock species. The major concerns for
horse breeders and owners are animal health,
performance, and physical characteristics.
The equine genome analyses will develop critical
resources, including an advanced gene map
to identify genes and mutations responsible
for inherited equine diseases and disorders
and to formulate approaches for diagnostics,
therapies, and disease prevention.
Understanding the equine genome will allow
researchers to discover genes associated
with significant traits, such as fertility,
disease resistance, coat color, athletic
performance, etc., and to use functional
genomic approaches to learn how genes might
regulate disease.
The first federally funded U.S. project
on equine genomics was initiated in 1998.
Within just 7 years, considerable progress
has been made in studying the structure and
organization of the equine genome. The current
horse gene map includes about 1,500 markers,
of which at least half are specific genes
or Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs). Recently,
the first generation Radiation Hybrids (RH)
and comparative map of the horse genome was
published.
Additionally, there are reasonably good
linkage, synteny, and cytogenetic maps and
three Bacterial Artificial Chromosomes (BAC)
libraries and 13 cDNA libraries from different
tissues. Sequence information on about 5,000
EST sequences is available in various databases.
It is expected that sequence data on another
30,000 ESTs will be available in the coming
months.
Overall, the progress in generating the
resources and essential infrastructure to
analyze the equine genome has been very encouraging.
In the future, this information will be extremely
useful in addressing issues affecting the
equine industry.
Contact: Bhanu
Chowdhary, Texas A&M University.
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