Exploitation of genomic technologies for sustainable intensification of dairy goats

该项目通过使用新的遗传和基因组技术来提高牛奶生产效率和供应连续性，解决了山羊奶业可持续集约化生产面临的主要挑战。一个关键的制约因素是奶山羊无法在非季节自然繁殖，从而影响全年的牛奶供应。因此，该项目将识别容易在反季节繁殖的母系和子系，并对这一特性的优点进行基因组预测。英国和国外更广泛的商业山羊产业将通过基因组预测和一系列其他关键性状，通过该项目为英国山羊开发低密度（LD）、低成本定制的单核苷酸多态性（SNP）阵列，实现对这种能力的利用。这将有助于从LD移植到更高密度的SNP阵列，并允许更大比例的外部羊群核进行基因分型，从而对更广泛的英国山羊种群和其他地区产生更大的吸收和影响。通过将常规的构象评分和乳腺炎记录作为动物健康和寿命的替代指标纳入基因组预测，该项目将确保奶山羊育种目标的长期可持续平衡，从而帮助将这一研究和以前由tsb资助的研究转化为实践

This project addresses key challenges facing the sustainable intensification of dairy goat milk production by using new genetic and genomic technologies to improve the efficiency of milk production and continuity of supply. A key constraint is the inability of dairy goats to naturally breed out of season, thereby affecting year-round supply of milk. This project therefore will identify sires with daughters that readily breed out of season and to generate genomic predictions of merit for this trait. The exploitation of such ability by the wider commercial goat industry in the UK and abroad will be enabled via genomic predictions for this and a range of other key traits via the development in this project of a low density (LD), lower cost customised single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array for UK goats. This will facilitate the imputation from LD to the higher density SNP arrays and allow a greater proportion of the outer herd nucleus to be genotyped, thereby creating greater uptake and impact to the wider UK goat population and beyond. The project will ensure that the balance of breeding objectives for dairy goats is sustainable in the long-term, by including routine collection of conformation scoring and mastitis records as proxy indicators of animal health and longevity into the genomic predictions, thereby helping to translate this and previous TSB-funded research into practice