Xu Songsong, Akhatayeva Zhanerke, Liu Jiaxin, Feng Xueyan, Yu Yi, Badaoui Bouabid, Esmailizadeh Ali, Kantanen Juha, Amills Marcel, Lenstra Johannes A, Johansson Anna M, Coltman David W, Liu George E, Curik Ino, Orozco-terWengel Pablo, Paiva Samuel R, Zinovieva Natalia A, Zhang Linwei, Yang Ji, Liu Zhihong, Wang Yachun, Yu Ying, Li Menghua
Frontiers Science Center for Molecular Design Breeding (MOE); State Key Laboratory of Animal Biotech Breeding; College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China.
Institute of Grassland Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hohhot, 010010, China.
Sci China Life Sci. 2025 Apr;68(4):934-960. doi: 10.1007/s11427-024-2744-4. Epub 2024 Nov 26.
Ruminant livestock provide a rich source of products, such as meat, milk, and wool, and play a critical role in global food security and nutrition. Over the past few decades, genomic studies of ruminant livestock have provided valuable insights into their domestication and the genetic basis of economically important traits, facilitating the breeding of elite varieties. In this review, we summarize the main advancements for domestic ruminants in reference genome assemblies, population genomics, and the identification of functional genes or variants for phenotypic traits. These traits include meat and carcass quality, reproduction, milk production, feed efficiency, wool and cashmere yield, horn development, tail type, coat color, environmental adaptation, and disease resistance. Functional genomic research is entering a new era with the advancements of graphical pangenomics and telomere-to-telomere (T2T) gap-free genome assembly. These advancements promise to improve our understanding of domestication and the molecular mechanisms underlying economically important traits in ruminant livestock. Finally, we provide new perspectives and future directions for genomic research on ruminant genomes. We suggest how ever-increasing multiomics datasets will facilitate future studies and molecular breeding in livestock, including the potential to uncover novel genetic mechanisms underlying phenotypic traits, to enable more accurate genomic prediction models, and to accelerate genetic improvement programs.
反刍家畜提供了丰富的产品来源，如肉、奶和羊毛，并在全球粮食安全和营养方面发挥着关键作用。在过去几十年里，反刍家畜的基因组研究为它们的驯化以及经济重要性状的遗传基础提供了宝贵的见解，推动了优良品种的培育。在这篇综述中，我们总结了家养反刍动物在参考基因组组装、群体基因组学以及表型性状功能基因或变异体鉴定方面的主要进展。这些性状包括肉和胴体品质、繁殖、产奶、饲料效率、羊毛和羊绒产量、角的发育、尾巴类型、毛色、环境适应性和抗病性。随着图形泛基因组学和端粒到端粒（T2T）无间隙基因组组装技术的进步，功能基因组研究正在进入一个新时代。这些进展有望增进我们对反刍家畜驯化以及经济重要性状潜在分子机制的理解。最后，我们为反刍动物基因组的研究提供了新的视角和未来方向。我们提出，不断增加的多组学数据集将如何促进未来家畜的研究和分子育种，包括揭示表型性状潜在新遗传机制的潜力、建立更准确的基因组预测模型以及加速遗传改良计划。
