Skip to main content
ARS Home » Plains Area » Clay Center, Nebraska » U.S. Meat Animal Research Center » Genetics and Animal Breeding » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #396055
Research Project: Developing a Systems Biology Approach to Enhance Efficiency and Sustainability of Beef and Lamb Production

Location: Genetics and Animal Breeding

Title: The bovine pangenome consortium: Democratizing production and accessibility of genome assemblies for global cattle breeds and other bovine species

Author
item Smith, Timothy - Tim
item Bickhart, Derek
item BOICHARD, DIDIER - Université Paris-Saclay
item CHAMBERLAIN, AMANDA - Agriculture Victoria
item DJIKENG, APPOLINAIRE - Centre For Tropical Livestock Genetics And Health
item JIANG, YU - Northwest A&f University
item LOW, WAI-YE - University Of Adelaide
item PAUSCH, HUBERT - Eth Zurich
item DEMYDA-PEYRAS, SEBASTIAN - Universidad Nacional De La Pampa
item PRENDERGAST, JAMES - University Of Edinburgh
item SCHNABEL, ROBERT - University Of Missouri
item Rosen, Benjamin - Ben

Submitted to: Genome Biology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/19/2023
Publication Date: 6/19/2023
Citation: Smith, T.P.L., Bickhart, D.M., Boichard, D., Chamberlain, A.J., Djikeng, A., Jiang, Y., Low, W., Pausch, H., Demyda-Peyras, S., Prendergast, J., Schnabel, R.D., Rosen, B.D. 2023. The bovine pangenome consortium: Democratizing production and accessibility of genome assemblies for global cattle breeds and other bovine species. Genome Biology. 24. Article 139. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13059-023-02975-0.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13059-023-02975-0

Interpretive Summary: Individual cattle breeds contain in the range of 3 to 14 million bases of DNA not found in the Hereford breed reference genome assembly of cattle, which represent genome segments present in the common ancestor that were lost during breed separation. Pangenomes graphs are representations of a species’ DNA that attempt to include all the bits of genome that exist around the world. We proposed a global initiative called the Bovine Pangenome Consortium to organize efforts for creating a pangenome resource for the cattle genomics research community. Specific goals of the consortium are to reduce inadvertent duplication or competition, enhance participation by historically underrepresented research communities, and expand the number of animals and breeds included in the final pangenome graph. The manuscript describes the operational goals of the consortium and serves as a call for other interested parties to participate.

Technical Abstract: The Bovine Pangenome Consortium (BPC) is an international collaboration dedicated to the assembly of cattle genomes to develop a more complete representation of cattle genomic diversity. The goal of the BPC is to provide genome assemblies and a community-agreed pangenome representation to replace breed-specific reference assemblies for cattle genomics. The BPC invites partners sharing our vision to participate in the production of these assemblies and the development of a common, community-approved, pangenome reference as a public resource for the research community (https:// bovin epang enome. github. io/). This community-driven resource will provide the context for comparison between studies and the future foundation for cattle genomic selection.