Perfect for Kentucky Derby day. researcher aims to understand the role of genetics

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Permalink Reply by Elizabeth Gormley on May 3, 2010 at 10:37am

i am happy to see someone else that finds this important and interesting! Dr. Hill's work will yield many secondary benefits beyond the "speed gene" test. To me it is a horse welfare issue because genomics applied to horse breeding and evaluation of sport aptitude if done correctly will contribute to reduced wastage of horses. I dont mean to oversimplify/ overrate what this one test can do but accurately applied it can prevent spending time and resources on a horse that does not fit the specialized requirements of the sport enviornment. the heart disease and diabetes claim is accurate because she and others are now doing gene expression work and also many others are looking into proteomics biomarkers for overtraining. As many well know metabolic syndrome/ insulin resistance is seen in human diabetics too. Also proteomic biomarkers are used in assessment of heart disease risk and diagnosis in humans.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B7XM1-...

i am from an animal science background and in dairy cattle they use inspections (phenotypic measure), progeny tests (phenotypic measure), plus genomic evaluation of traits of interest. if this is used in sport horse or any performance horse breeding and the genetic tests prove to be accurate, then the risk of breeding horses is lowered for these specific risk factors thus more investment in the sport can take place. Upon speaking with many business people they will often prefer to invest in racing because they think the roi is more assured than in sport horses- genomics applied to sport horse breeding will lower the risk and increase the interest of business investors.. in sporthorse breeding embryos are being sequenced, vitrified, etc. check out interstallion and minitube international they are doing great things in this area.

http://www.biw.kuleuven.be/genlog/livgen/chgs_interstallion.html

http://www.minitube.com/species_products.asp?Cat_ID=3&MI_ID=40

If knowing what the horses physical limits are it is much more efficient for training but most importantly it could prevent cruelty of pushing a horse far beyond what it can handle because of its pedigree (his full sib won the kent. derby he has to be just as fast, etc.). With pedigrees one cannot distinguish between full sibs. with genomic evaluation one can id animals that have desired gene sequences, and it is often revealed that full sibs can be genetically different. Conversely distant relatives can be proven to be genetically more similar than full sibs for some traits, depending on the relative position of the trait of interest(it depends on what chromosome it is on and where on that chromosome.).. Perfect example is the work Valberg has done on PSSM and RER genetics. some traits are not inherited as a single gene but many genes, Some traits are genetically based but cannot be passed on to progeny -genomics can sort these things out.

just a small detail- Dr. Hill fixed all the pedigree errors in the TB records too, she is a great lady

http://www.tbheritage.com/GeneticMarkers/mtdnaintbdamlines3.html

another person that does great work is Dr. Ottmar Distl.

the dairy producers have been using genomic evaluation for years now and they have evidence to report the increase in selection accuracy, thus transforming dairy breeding to a medium rather than high risk investment.

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Permalink Reply by Elizabeth Gormley on May 3, 2010 at 1:43pm

when i said "it is often revealed that full sibs can be genetically different" that was too non specific sorry for that. what i really meant was phenotypes evaluation/ early performance tests done before the horse develops a sport record and physical appearance/ movement can be very very similar beween full sibs- but with genomic testing they may be genetically very different and the trait may not be able to be passed on by one full sib yet the other full sib is provably prepotent for it. Conversely more distantly related horses or siblings that do not look or perform alike may be able reliably to pass on a specific gene sequence. Genomics testing can help with that .

Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD)
http://www.phelpsmediagroup.com/viewarticle.php?id=4788



human heart disease / genes encoding proteins of the myofibrillar apparatus (cTnI)

"The results of molecular genetics studies have shown that familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a disease of the sarcomere involving mutations in 7 different genes encoding proteins of the myofibrillar apparatus: beta-myosin heavy chain, ventricular myosin essential light chain, ventricular myosin regulatory light chain, cardiac troponin T, cardiac troponin I, alpha-tropomyosin, and cardiac myosin binding protein C"

http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/pvd/abstract.00003012-199809210-00002....!-761347985!181195628!8091!-1?nav=reference


horse heart damage screening test
"The analysis of cardiac troponin I (cTnI) in the diagnosis of myocardial injury in domestic
animals is gaining popularity. In this study, equine cTnI was sequenced and compared with previously characterized
cTnI from other species."
http://jvdi.org/cgi/reprint/17/6/582.pdf


mans best friend too
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123357092/abstract

familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a disease so i guess being genetically programmed larger heart is not always a good thing

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Permalink Reply by Elizabeth Gormley on June 1, 2010 at 4:27pm

proteomics-

http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=16435

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