By DOUG SCHMITZ

Iowa Correspondent

AMES, Iowa — Iowa State University will become the home to the nation’s first Swine Genomic Center of Excellence, devoted to understanding the genomic mechanisms governing key genetic traits such as growth and disease resistance, the USDA announced.

“We’ve sequenced the pig’s genome, but we don’t necessarily have all the information we need to make the best use of that data,” said Christopher Tuggle, an ISU professor of animal science and of bioinformatics and computational biology.

Tuggle, currently the USDA’s national swine genome co-coordinator who will lead the center, said the project’s effort will focus on functional genomics of pigs, or building a better understanding of how the genome functions to influence pig performance.

“We’re going to find out exactly what many of those genes are doing and what controls them,” he explained.

The USDA’s National Institutes of Food and Agriculture will fund the $2.5 million grant awarded to ISU for the center over the next four years, as part of a larger effort that will include similar genomics work with cattle and chickens at other universities.

The grant is a part of the $6 million awarded to create three functional genomics projects. The USDA awarded grants to create programs for cattle genomics at the University of California-Davis, and chicken genomics at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, Calif.

The UC-Davis bovine genome was first sequenced in 2009 and was one of the largest genomes ever sequenced, said Pablo Ross, a UC-Davis associate professor of animal science and its project director.

“We have the code of the cow’s genome, but we don’t know what it means,” he said. “This project is like genome sequencing 2.0; the goal is to identify the functional elements of the cow’s genome.”

The center will include personnel at ISU, Michigan State University, UC-Davis and the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service. The research effort aims to allow U.S. pork producers to use genetics more efficiently to predict the traits their herds possess.

According to Tuggle, the researchers will test a range of tissues from pigs at various stages of development with a major focus on chromatin, or the complex in cells where DNA is packaged. He said they will analyze the functions of various genetic structures and mechanisms, focusing on exploring the genetics of disease immunity.

He noted the project will also share the data it produces with the public and other scientists, with much of the data storage and analysis occurring at ISU as well. The project’s findings likely will have implications for a wide range of swine management practices, from how producers handle herd nutrition to treating disease.

James Koltes, an ISU assistant professor of animal science, said he and Jim Reecy, ISU associate vice president for research, will lead the project’s computational aspects.

“The data generated in this project will provide unprecedented opportunities to learn how genes are regulated and controlled over different growth phases and during disease in the pig,” Koltes said. “The ability to combine different types of genetic data will allow us to predict genetic regulation in ways that have not been performed previously.”