Fact Sheet Written by:
Larry Kuehn, PhD Research Geneticist, U.S. Meat Animal Research Center
And Provided by:
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Beef cattle Genotyping and Discovery at USMARC has been impacted tremendously by the release of the 50K marker chip (Illumina® BovineSNP50 Beadchip) by Illumina in 2008 (Figure 1). This product introduced a new realm of research possibilities by providing a platform where animals could be genotyped for over 50,000 DNA markers at one time. These markers are distributed evenly across the entire genome. As a result, these DNA markers are dramatically more likely to explain the variance in economically relevant traits caused by genes on any chromosome. The application of this panel has already significantly changed genetic evaluations for dairy cattle. However, beef cattle have several challenges that have slowed application (many more breeds, less artificial insemination, and an interest in traits that are not routinely evaluated in national cattle evaluation). Research at USMARC is focused on overcoming these challenges.
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