Use of-omics technologies toward profitability and beef consumers' satisfaction

加拿大牛肉生产商有巨大的机会来满足全球对高质量动物蛋白产品日益增长的需求。然而，饲料成本高和质量不稳定仍然是重大挑战。我们一直在研究如何通过使用DNA样本组来应对这些挑战，以便根据DNA图谱选择和专门管理动物，从而提高生产效率和产品质量。** 加拿大的牛肉质量审计继续将牛肉嫩度确定为消费者对牛肉的头号质量问题。如果牛肉更嫩，消费者将愿意为牛肉支付更多的钱，并更经常地购买牛肉。虽然饲料效率和牛肉质量对该行业来说是巨大的挑战和机遇，但直到最近随着基因组学技术的发展，该行业通过改进遗传学来解决这些问题的能力几乎是不可能的。这些性状的传统遗传改良方法并不成功，因为这些性状过于昂贵且难以测量。这项研究旨在改进现有的基因组工具，以提高选择效率，并解决对消费者重要的新性状，并使牛肉生产商受益。这个项目汇集了一个经验丰富的加拿大团队来利用这些新的机会。新的高通量OMICS技术（如转录组学）与系统生物学方法中的表型/基因型数据和功能信息相结合，将导致更全面地了解与经济上重要的性状（如嫩度、并整合这些综合信息，用于遗传改良计划，以提高加拿大牛肉产业的竞争力。***

Canadian beef producers have a tremendous opportunity to meet the increasing global demand for high quality animal protein products. However, high feed costs and inconsistent quality remain significant challenges. Research has been underway towards addressing these challenges through the use of DNA panels to allow animals to be selected and specifically managed according to DNA profile to increase the production efficiency and product quality. **Beef quality audits in Canada continue to identify beef tenderness as the number one quality concern consumers have with beef. If beef was more consistently tender, consumers would be willing to pay more for beef and purchase it more often. Although feed efficiency and beef quality represent tremendous challenges and opportunities for the industry, the ability of the industry to address these through improved genetics has been almost impossible until very recently with the development of genomics technologies. Traditional approaches to genetic improvement for these traits are not successful as the traits are too expensive and difficult to measure. This research is designed to improve the genomic tools available to increase selection efficiency and address new traits of importance for consumers and with benefit to beef producers.**This project brings together an experienced Canadian team to exploit these new opportunities. The combination of the new high-throughput -OMICS technologies such as transcriptomics with phenotype/genotype data and functional information within a systems biology approach will result in a more complete understanding of the genes, regulatory pathways and causal mutations involved in economically important traits such tenderness, and integrate this comprehensive information for use in genetic improvement programs to improve the competitiveness of the Canadian beef industry.********