Don’t get sheepish: U of I researcher to lead genome project

A new research project could help Idaho sheep farmers breed and raise the most genetically efficient sheep for various markets.

By trying to identify genetic indicators in DNA that control breeding, milking, wool production, climate adaptivity, disease resistance and other traits, Brenda Murdoch hopes to help sheep producers predict how each sheep in their flock will survive and what they will yield. This research is currently being done in humans, dairy cows and cattle, and Murdoch, an associate professor in the University of Idaho’s Animal, Veterinary and Food Sciences Department, has previously assisted in the cattle research.

“It’s helping people who have a long tradition of agriculture, especially in a ‘minor breed’; some people think of sheep as a minor breed in comparison to cattle/dairy,” Murdoch said. “It’s important for those stakeholders, for people to continue that research to help them.”

The three-year sheep genome project has received $500,000 in funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The money will pay for sheep breeding and purchasing, students to help run projects and postdoctoral fellows to help analyze and share the information, such as at conferences and into resource tools, like Flock 54.

“We know there is other genetic information that we don’t see if we look at one particular animal from one breed as a reference,” Murdoch said. “Now people can genome edit animals, which is fine, (but) we are still trying to understand the biology that that genome controls before we can change it or get rid of it.”

Project collaborators include New Zealand AgResearch and the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland (which produced the first sheep clone). Both countries have been big sheep producers for quite some time, Murdoch said, and they have been contributing research and tools for years. The other collaborators are USDA Agricultural Research Service and Utah State University, another long-standing partner.

“It’s kind of the next phase (in research),” Murdoch said. “They say, ‘Many hands make light work,’ and this will allow (the) opportunity to train scientists and develop access to tools.”

The project reflects a new strategy for mapping the variation of genomes in a species’ “pangenome,” its complete genomic catalog with associated biological traits, as described in a recent University of Idaho press release about the project. Called trio binning, the method defines the two parents’ unique contributions to the offspring. Each parent contributes half of its genome to the offspring, and the offspring represents both of the parental genomes. The researchers will take the offspring to analyze their genetic sequences and the parents’ contributions.

The breeds used in the research are Awassi, East Friesian, Merino, Navajo Churro, Polypay, Rocky Mountain Bighorn sheep, St. Croix and Suffolk, each known for “the economic value of their diverse biological traits,” Murdoch said in the press release. Some such as the bighorn and St. Croix draw recognition worldwide for their esthetic appeal and for their susceptibility and resistance to disease and parasites. Others were selected for their excellence in more commercial biological traits. Other sheep were selected because something in their genome allows them to thrive in hot and desert conditions.

Wild Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep will also be studied due to their susceptibility of getting diseases from domestic sheep.

“It’s important for us as researchers to make sure that we are supporting our industry needs, and it’s very good our industry has been very supportive of the type of research we need to do to get them there,” Murdoch said. “Idaho has been strong in the sheep industry, has been very supportive of U of I and sheep research in general. I there are ways we know we can help them be more sustainable and profitable, those are our goals and as a geneticist this is how I do that.”