DNA甲基化与基因组印记

综合论述了DNA甲基化与基因组印记的最新研究进展,论述了它们的生物学意义,并阐述了两者的关系.     

西尼罗热病毒RT-PCR检测方法的建立

参考Genebank发表的西尼罗热病毒(West Nile virus，WNV)E糖蛋白基因序列，自行设计合成一对引物，对WNV进行RT—PCR扩增，产物经琼脂糖电泳分析，呈现一条约400bp的条带，将其克隆入pMD18-T—Vector载体中，并进行序列测定，与已发表的WNV基因比较发现，核苷酸的同源性为99．7％，证实为WNV的E基因，通过对样品多次检测，都能扩增出一条约400bp的条带，表明该方法比较稳定。     

绵羊肺腺瘤病毒NM株前病毒gag基因的克隆与序列分析

参照GenBank中已发表的绵羊肺腺瘤病毒(JSRV)的全基因序列，设计合成3对引物，对JSRVNM株的gag基因分3段进行PCR扩增，经琼脂糖凝胶电泳分析，分别呈3条531、888和949 bp的特异条带，将其分别克隆人pMD-18T载体中，进行序列测定并拼接序列，得到完整的gag基因序列。分析结果表明，与南非代表株(基因序列号NC-001494)的gag基因序列比较，核苷酸同源性为89．0%，推导出的氨基酸同源性为90％。与美国代表株(基因序列号AF105220)的gag基因序列比较，核苷酸同源性为86．3％，氨基酸同源性为87％。     

Genetic risk factors for osteochondrosis in various horse breeds

Osteochondrosis (OC) is an injury to cartilage canals with a following necrosis in the growth cartilage, from there it can develop to osteochondrosis dissecans (OCD). Due to its high impact in the equine industry, new insights into predisposing factors and potential high‐risk genetic variants are warranted. This article reviews advancements in quantitative and molecular genetics in refining estimation of genetic parameters and identifying predisposing genetic loci. Heritabilities were highest for hock OC with estimates at 0.29–0.46 in Hanoverian warmblood and Norwegian trotters, whereas in Thoroughbreds only very low genetic variation seemed to be present in hock OC lesions. Whole genome scans using the Illumina Equine SNP50 or SNP70 Beadchip were performed in Thoroughbred, Standardbred, French and Norwegian trotter, Hanoverian and Dutch warmblood. Validation studies in Spanish Purebred and Hanoverian warmblood horses corroborated OC risk loci on ECA 3, 14, 27 and 29. Particularly, a strong association with hock‐OCD was found for a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) on horse chromosome (ECA) 3 upstream to the LCORL gene. Gene expression and microRNA analyses may be helpful to understand pathophysiological processes in equine OC and to connect OCD‐associated genomic regions with potential candidate genes. Furthermore progress in elucidating the underlying genetic variants and pathophysiological changes in OC may be expected from whole genome DNA and RNA next‐generation sequencing studies.     

The impact of truncating data on the predictive ability for single‐step genomic best linear unbiased prediction

Simulated and swine industry data sets were utilized to assess the impact of removing older data on the predictive ability of selection candidate estimated breeding values (EBV) when using single‐step genomic best linear unbiased prediction (ssGBLUP). Simulated data included thirty replicates designed to mimic the structure of swine data sets. For the simulated data, varying amounts of data were truncated based on the number of ancestral generations back from the selection candidates. The swine data sets consisted of phenotypic and genotypic records for three traits across two breeds on animals born from 2003 to 2017. Phenotypes and genotypes were iteratively removed 1 year at a time based on the year an animal was born. For the swine data sets, correlations between corrected phenotypes (Cp) and EBV were used to evaluate the predictive ability on young animals born in 2016–2017. In the simulated data set, keeping data two generations back or greater resulted in no statistical difference (p‐value > 0.05) in the reduction in the true breeding value at generation 15 compared to utilizing all available data. Across swine data sets, removing phenotypes from animals born prior to 2011 resulted in a negligible or a slight numerical increase in the correlation between Cp and EBV. Truncating data is a method to alleviate computational issues without negatively impacting the predictive ability of selection candidate EBV.     

Single step genomic evaluation for female fertility in Nordic Red dairy cattle

Joint Nordic (Denmark, Finland, Sweden) genetic evaluation of female fertility is currently based on the multiple trait multilactation animal model (BLUP). Here, single step genomic model (ssGBLUP) was applied for the Nordic Red dairy cattle fertility evaluation. The 11 traits comprised of nonreturn rate and days from first to last insemination in heifers and first three parities, and days from calving to first insemination in the first three parities. Traits had low heritabilities (0.015–0.04), but moderately high genetic correlations between the parities (0.60–0.88). Phenotypic data included 4,226,715 animals with records and pedigree 5,445,392 animals. Unknown parents were assigned into 332 phantom parent groups (PPG). In mixed model equations animals were associated with PPG effects through the pedigree or both the pedigree and genomic information. Genotype information of 46,914 SNPs was available for 33,969 animals in the pedigree. When PPG used pedigree information only, BLUP converged after 2,420 iterations whereas the ssGBLUP evaluation needed over ten thousand iterations. When the PPG effects were solved accounting both the pedigree and the genomic information, the ssGBLUP model converged after 2,406 iterations. Also, with the latter model breeding values by ssGBLUP and BLUP became more consistent and genetic trends followed each other well. Models were validated using forward prediction of the young bulls. Reliabilities and variance inflation of predicted genomic breeding values (values for parent averages in brackets) for the 11 traits ranged 0.22–0.31 (0.10–0.27) and 0.81–0.95 (0.83–1.06), respectively. The ssGBLUP model gave always higher validation reliabilities than BLUP, but largest increases were for the cow fertility traits.     

Genome‐Wide Identification of MicroRNAs Responsive to High Temperature in Rice (Oryza sativa) by High‐Throughput Deep Sequencing

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are known to play important roles in plant growth and stress response. Heat stress is a severe abiotic stresses by adversely affecting plant growth and yield. To identify heat‐responsive miRNAs at the genome‐wide level in rice (Oryza sativa), we constructed two small RNA libraries from young panicles treated or not with heat conditions. Ion torrent sequencing of the two libraries identified 294 known miRNAs and 539 novel miRNAs. Differential expression analysis showed that 26 miRNAs were downregulated and 21 miRNAs were upregulated in response to heat stress. Among them, five heat‐responsive miRNAs, including miR162b, miR529a‐p5, PC‐5P‐62245‐9, miR171b and miR169n, were validated by quantitative real‐time polymerase chain reaction. A total of 44 target genes of the differentially expressed miRNAs were predicted. These target genes are most significantly overrepresented in the cell growth process. The results demonstrated that rice miRNAs play critical roles in the heat stress response. This study opens up a new avenue for understanding the regulatory mechanisms of miRNAs involvement in the heat stress response in rice.     

橡胶树产胶生物学研究进展

天然橡胶（顺式-1,4-聚异戊二烯）是一种重要的工业原料,主要来自橡胶树。以天然橡胶的生物合成与产量形成为主要内容的产胶生物学研究为橡胶树高产遗传改良提供理论指导,近10年取得了重要进展。本文从橡胶树基因组测序、橡胶转移酶、转基因、以及转录组和蛋白质组等4个方面介绍产胶生物学研究主要进展,并讨论了相关领域研究存在的问题,对未来5~10年需重点关注的研究内容提出了建议。在介绍橡胶转移酶时,同时概述其他几种产胶植物的相关研究进展。     

利用基因组信息提高畜禽生产性能研究进展

为了满足人们对畜产品需求的快速增长，必须在加快畜禽产业发展的同时把对环境的影响降到最低，提高畜禽遗传特性有望促进这一问题的解决。进入21世纪以来，以基因组选择为核心的分子育种技术迎来了发展机遇，利用该技术可实现早期准确选择，从而大幅度缩短世代间隔，加快群体遗传进展，并显著降低育种成本。虽然在某些畜种中（如奶牛），基因组选择取得了成功，群体也获得较大遗传进展，但仍无法满足快速增长的需求。因此，亟需寻找能够进一步加快遗传进展的方法。研究表明，在SNP标记数据中加入目标性状的已知功能基因信息，可以提高基因组育种值预测的准确性，进而加快遗传进展。而挖掘更多基因组信息的同时，开发更优化的分析方法可以更有助于目标的实现。文章总结了主要畜禽物种的可用基因组数据，包括牛、绵羊、山羊、猪和鸡以及这些数据是如何有助于鉴定影响重要性状的遗传标记和基因，从而进一步提高基因组选择的准确性。