Mapping Productive Traits in Livestock

We have been fortunate in obtaining funding from both NZSAP and The Ministry of Research Science and Technology to bring Dr Steve Kappes from the USDA Meat Animal Research Center, Clay Center, Nebraska to give the keynote address for this session.

Dr Kappes is the leading gene linkage mapper in the cattle world and presented a 1251 marker map at the recent International Society of Animal Genetics Conference in France. This map is now in press and the microsatellite markers developed by his group are being used widely by animal geneticists around the world. His group, in collaboration with Dr Roger Stone, have begun to use the markers developed for the cattle linkage map to identify markers and genes associated with meat tenderness and yield in beef cattle. He has also begun a major study into the genetics of ovulation rate control (twinning) in cattle.

As well as introducing the concepts of genetic linkage and segregation analysis Dr Kappes will talk about his recent results with meat quality attributes. Following this introduction there will be a series of short talks each one illustrating the a different step in the in the long process from finding an inherited difference in phenotype to cloning and characterising the gene responsible. These include Finding QTL's without markers: experience with FINDGENE (John McEwan), A candidate gene approach to animal quality traits (Barry Palmer), Disease resistance: a genome scan approach to finding markers and genes (Allan Crawford), Using information from other species: comparative mapping (Mike Tate), and Positional cloning to identify genes (Grant Montgomery). The session will finish with a summary (Peter Fennessy) and a general discussion.

Allan Crawford

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