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2 Publications visible to you, out of a total of 2
Novel strategies to improve chicken performance and welfare by unveiling host-microbiota interactions through hologenomics

Abstract (Expand)

Fast optimisation of farming practices is essential to meet environmental sustainability challenges. Hologenomics, the joint study of the genomic features of animals and the microbial communities … associated with them, opens new avenues to obtain in-depth knowledge on how host-microbiota interactions affect animal performance and welfare, and in doing so, improve the quality and sustainability of animal production. Here, we introduce the animal trials conducted with broiler chickens in the H2020 project HoloFood, and our strategy to implement hologenomic analyses in light of the initial results, which despite yielding negligible effects of tested feed additives, provide relevant information to understand how host genomic features, microbiota development dynamics and host-microbiota interactions shape animal welfare and performance. We report the most relevant results, propose hypotheses to explain the observed patterns, and outline how these questions will be addressed through the generation and analysis of animal-microbiota multi-omic data during the HoloFood project.

Authors: Núria Tous, Sofia Marcos, Farshad Goodarzi Boroojeni, Ana Pérez de Rozas, Jürgen Zentek, Andone Estonba, Dorthe Sandvang, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Enric Esteve-Garcia, Robert Finn, Antton Alberdi, Joan Tarradas

Date Published: 6th Sep 2022

Publication Type: Peer Review

Genetic properties of the MAGIC maize population: a new platform for high definition QTL mapping in Zea mays.

Abstract (Expand)

BACKGROUND: Maize (Zea mays) is a globally produced crop with broad genetic and phenotypic variation. New tools that improve our understanding of the genetic basis of quantitative traits are needed to … guide predictive crop breeding. We have produced the first balanced multi-parental population in maize, a tool that provides high diversity and dense recombination events to allow routine quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping in maize. RESULTS: We produced 1,636 MAGIC maize recombinant inbred lines derived from eight genetically diverse founder lines. The characterization of 529 MAGIC maize lines shows that the population is a balanced, evenly differentiated mosaic of the eight founders, with mapping power and resolution strengthened by high minor allele frequencies and a fast decay of linkage disequilibrium. We show how MAGIC maize may find strong candidate genes by incorporating genome sequencing and transcriptomics data. We discuss three QTL for grain yield and three for flowering time, reporting candidate genes. Power simulations show that subsets of MAGIC maize might achieve high-power and high-definition QTL mapping. CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrate MAGIC maize's value in identifying the genetic bases of complex traits of agronomic relevance. The design of MAGIC maize allows the accumulation of sequencing and transcriptomics layers to guide the identification of candidate genes for a number of maize traits at different developmental stages. The characterization of the full MAGIC maize population will lead to higher power and definition in QTL mapping, and lay the basis for improved understanding of maize phenotypes, heterosis included. MAGIC maize is available to researchers.

Authors: M. Dell'Acqua, D. M. Gatti, G. Pea, F. Cattonaro, F. Coppens, G. Magris, A. L. Hlaing, H. H. Aung, H. Nelissen, J. Baute, E. Frascaroli, G. A. Churchill, D. Inze, M. Morgante, M. E. Pe

Date Published: 11th Sep 2015

Publication Type: Journal Article

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