US-Egypt Cooperative Research: An Anchored Comparative Map of the River Buffalo Genome

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9713618 Womack Description: This award is for support of a cooperative project by Dr. James E. Womack, Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, Texas A&M University in College Station, TX, and Dr. Soheir El-Nahas, Department of Cell Biology at the National Research Center (NRC) in Cairo, Egypt. The objective of this joint research is to utilize a panel of hybrid somatic cells, generated in the Egyptian laboratory, to map comparative anchor loci developed initially for use in the cattle gene mapping in the US laboratory. These will include comparative anchor tagged sites (CATs) primers where applicable, and custom designed bovine PCR primers for anchor loci recalcitrant to mapping with CATs primers. The goal is to build a comparative map of river buffalo genome, anchored at ten centimorgan intervals to the maps of cattle and other mammals including human and mice. These maps will permit "comparative candidate positional cloning" of genes of economic interest in buffalo from the high resolution maps of other species. Scope: This research project will allow two experienced researchers to collaborate on a project of significant potential to the scientific interests in the United States and in Egypt. The project has great potential for the improvement of buffaloes in Egypt through the identification of genes for economically important traits and markers. The US laboratory will be able to continue its pursuit of identifying the chromosomal homology between humans and cattle, since most of the CATs primers remain untested in cattle and consequently are unmapped. Thus any primers discovered to work in buffalo by the Egyptian laboratory will have a high probability of working in cattle and can then be added to the cattle map. The net result of the collaboration to screen the CATs primers will be a more efficient screen than either laboratory can perform alone. This proposal meets the INT objective of supporting U.S.- foreign collaboration in areas that have shared benefits for both sides. This project is being supported under the US- Egypt Joint Fund Program, which provides grants to scientists and engineers in both countries to carry out these cooperative activities. ***