The sheep genome illuminates biology of the rumen and lipid metabolism

Yu Jiang (1, 2, 3) , Min Xie (4) , Wenbin Chen (4) , Richard Talbot (5) , Jillian F. Maddox (6) , Thomas Faraut (7) , Chunhua Wu (6) , Donna M. Muzny (8) , Yuxiang Li (4) , Wenguang Zhang (9, 10, 3) , Jo-Ann Stanton (11) , Rudiger Brauning (12) , Wesley C. Barris (1) , Thibaut Hourlier (13, 14) , Bronwen L. Aken (13, 14) , Stephen M. J. Searle (13) , David L. Adelson (1) , Chao Bian (4) , Graham R. Cam (1) , Yulin Chen (2) , Shifeng Cheng (4) , Udaya Desilva (1) , Karen Dixen (15) , Yang Dong (16) , Guangyi Fan (4) , Ian R. Franklin (1) , Shaoyin Fu (9) , Pablo Fuentes-Utrilla (5) , Rui Guan (4) , Margaret A. Highland (17, 18) , Michael E. Holder (8) , Guodong Huang (4) , Aaron B. Ingham (1) , Shalini N. Jhangiani (8) , Divya Kalra (8) , Christie L. Kovar (8) , Sandra L. Lee (8) , Weiqing Liu (4) , Xin Liu (4) , Changxin Lu (4) , Tian Lv (4) , Tittu Mathew (8) , Sean Mcwilliam (1) , Moira Menzies (1) , Shengkai Pan (4) , David Robelin (19) , Bertrand Servin (20) , David Townley (1) , Wenliang Wang (4) , Bin Wei (4, 21) , Stephen N. White (17, 18) , Xinhua Yang (4) , Chen Ye (4) , Yaojing Yue (22) , Peng Zeng (4) , Qing Zhou (4) , Jacob B. Hansen (15) , Karsten Kristiansen (15) , Richard A. Gibbs (8) , Paul Flicek (14) , Christopher C. Warkup (23) , Huw E. Jones (23) , V. Hutton Oddy (24) , Frank W. Nicholas (25) , John C. Mcewan (12) , James W. Kijas (1) , Jun Wang (4, 15, 26, 27) , Kim C. Worley (8) , Alan L. Archibald (28) , Noelle Cockett (6) , Xun Xu (4) , Wen Wang (3) , Brian P. Dalrymple (1)

1 Animal, Food and Health Sciences
2 Northwest A&F University
3 Kunming Institute of Zoology, State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution
4 BGI - Beijing Genomics Institute [Shenzhen]
5 Edin. - University of Edinburgh
6 USU - Utah State University
7 GenPhySE - Génétique Physiologie et Systèmes d'Elevage
8 Human Genome Sequencing Center
9 IMAU - Inner Mongolia Agricultural University
10 Nei Mongol Bio-Information
11 Department of Anatomy
12 Invermay Agricultural Centre
13 The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute [Cambridge]
14 European Molecular Biology Laboratory
15 Department of Biology
16 KIZ - Kunming Institute of Zoology
17 Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology
18 USDA - United States Department of Agriculture
19 LGC - Laboratoire de Génétique Cellulaire
20 LGC - Laboratoire de Génie Chimique
21 Sichuan Agricultural University
22 Lanzhou Institute of Husbandry and Pharmaceutical Science
23 The Roslin Institute
24 School of Environmental and Rural Science
25 Faculty of Veterinary Science
26 Princess Al Jawhara Center of Excellence in the Research of Hereditary Disorders
27 MUST - Macau University of Science and Technology
28 The Roslin Institute and Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies

Sheep (Ovis aries) are a major source of meat, milk, and fiber in the form of wool and represent a distinct class of animals that have a specialized digestive organ, the rumen, that carries out the initial digestion of plant material. We have developed and analyzed a high-quality reference sheep genome and transcriptomes from 40 different tissues. We identified highly expressed genes encoding keratin cross-linking proteins associated with rumen evolution. We also identified genes involved in lipid metabolism that had been amplified and/or had altered tissue expression patterns. This may be in response to changes in the barrier lipids of the skin, an interaction between lipid metabolism and wool synthesis, and an increased role of volatile fatty acids in ruminants compared with nonruminant animals.

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]; Génétique; Génétique animale; Informatique [cs]

Yu Jiang, Min Xie, Wenbin Chen, Richard Talbot, Jillian F. Maddox, et al.. The sheep genome illuminates biology of the rumen and lipid metabolism. Science, 2014, 344 (6188), pp.1168-1173. ⟨10.1126/science.1252806⟩. ⟨hal-02635391⟩