Pig Genome Update No. 17

angenmap@db.genome.iastate.edu
March 1, 1996

  1. Plant Genome IV was a huge success
  2. Organization of the Combined Animal and Plant Genome Meeting
  3. A Recent PiGMaP Meetig Was Held in Amsterdam
  4. Fluorescent Primers for Genotyping Are Coming
  5. Congratulation to The Success of The NAGRP Chicken and Pig Gene Mapping Home Pages
  6. News from the National Agricultural Library
  7. The HUGO Comparative Genome Workshop
  8. The International Society of Animal Genetics (ISAG) Meeting
  9. Abstracts from The ISAG Pig Workshop in Ghent and The HUGO Comparative Genome Workshop
  10. Tutorial on Pig Gene Mapping is Available on Our Web Page
  11. Upcoming Meetings

Plant Genome IV was a huge success and was attended by three members of the NRSP-8. The purpose of the visit by M. Dentine, H. Cheng and M. Rothschild was to follow through on the decision at the 1996 annual meeting of the NSRP-8 Technical Committee to accept an invitation by the organizers of the Plant Genome Meeting to join them to form a combined Animal and Plant Genome Meeting. We met with the organizers to begin planning the 1997 joint meeting. An informal poll of the meeting attendees indicates that this meeting is the premier international meeting for anyone working on plant genetics. This feeling is strengthened by the fact that the meeting attracts many people throughout the world and attendance has steadily grown to about 700 attendees this year. The philosophy of the meeting is to have a few presentations each morning and afternoon but leave plenty of time for networking, viewing of posters and commercial exhibits, and free time to enjoy the weather and sights. This is reflected in the format of the meeting which has evolved to consist of a combination of plenary lectures, invited talks, posters, and workshops. The plenary lectures are often given by people outside of the field to stimulate discussion (e.g., Dr. Stephen O'Brien on comparative mapping and Dr. Mike Lovett on positional cloning) while many of the invited talks are given by people within the plant community. There is an abundance of posters. Workshops covered many topics and there were 16 workshops this year.


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Scherago International is a professional conference organizer and has been hired to run the meeting. Traditionally, the meeting has been in January to take advantage of the relatively cheap airfares during this time of the year for both national and international travelers. It is held at the San Diego Town and Country which has a convention center, been recently renovated, and is relatively cheap. The Town and Country is easily accessible to the San Diego Airport by shuttle and is adjacent to a large shopping mall and many cheaper hotels. It is close to such attractions as Old Town San Diego, the San Diego Zoo, the Wild Animal Park, Sea World, etc. Registration last year was $300 for everyone except $100 for students and included an abstract book, the final program, continental breakfast in the mornings, coffee breaks, evening receptions, and one dinner at the end of the meeting. The organizers of the meeting are primarily responsible for setting up the scientific agenda which includes the topics and invited speakers. The organizers of this meeting includes Stephen Heller (ARS Informatics, Beltsville, MD), Susan McCouch (rice disease, Cornell), Michael Gale (John Innes Center, UK), and Doug Bigwood (National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD). At our meeting with the organizers and people from Scherago International, we discussed how the Animal Genome Meeting would be integrated. Basically, it was agreed that the format of the meeting would not change and as much as possible, have joint plenary sessions for both plant and animal researchers. From our group, we felt that it would be best to make this meeting fairly comprehensive and include other animal species (e.g., horse, dog, cat, fish, etc.). For 1997 the meeting will probably start Sunday January 12 with all day species' technical committee meetings for cattle and sheep, poultry, and swine. There could also be possible workshops for horse, fish, wildlife, etc. as desired. There would also be an opening reception. On Monday and Tuesday there would be the mix of joint plenary speakers and also separate speakers for animal and plant subjects. Some of these might be joint and others concurrent sessions. There would be considerable time for posters and networking. Workshops could be held in the evening and on Tuesday night there would be the NSRP-8 business meeting. We would finish up on Wednesday so you could either leave or stay for the plant talks. We wish to make 1997 a successful meeting for the animal researchers and need your input. Of immediate concern is the topics to be discussed and a list of potential speakers. Any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated. Make your plans now to attend.


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A recent PiGMaP meeting was held in Amsterdam. The meeting covered progress on the international gene mapping efforts. Results for the PiGMaP now include over 600 genes and markers. A second version of the PiGMaP will be submitted for publication in the near future. Discussion centered on research progress and on planning new diversity projects.


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Fluorescent primers for genotyping are coming. At the 1995 meeting of NC-210 (Mapping the Pig Genome) and NRSP-8 (Pig Genome Technical Committee), a committee was appointed to develop a list of microsatellite markers that would be useful as a QTL screening set with fluorescently labeled primers. The committee, composed of Brian Kirkpatrick (Wisconsin), Chris Tuggle (Iowa State) and Daniel Pomp (Nebraska), have developed a list of 60 primer sets based on the following criteria: spacing throughout the genome; marker detection quality using ABI equipment; and informativeness. Much use was made of information kindly shared by Martien Groenen (Wageningen) and Denis Milan (Toulouse). The U.S. Pig Genome Coordinator has agreed to fund the synthesis and distribution of these primer sets. Each primer pair will be composed of one fluorescently labeled and one unlabelled primer. Use of all available dyes will facilitate multiplexing. Synthesis is ongoing and should be completed by the end of March. If you wish to receive a set, please contact the U.S. Pig Coordinator directly.


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Congratulations to all of you that have helped to make the WWW gene mapping pages so successful. As you well know it may be difficult to find things on the internet and there are several directories that help users. The NAGRP Chicken and Pig Gene Mapping home pages were each recently recognized as a "4 Star" site in Magellan, McKinley's internet directory of 1.5 million sites of which 40,000 have been reviewed. This is the highest rating possible. In addition the USDA home pages for the Biotechnology Center of the National Agricultural Library and the gene mapping pages for MARC were also awarded the same rating. Our Pig Genome home page continues to be updated. It serves as a gateway for other databases, information on gene mapping, newsletters, meeting updates and much much more. This is your home page so please give us your ideas to include.


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News from the National Agricultural Library. Public accesses to the livestock animal genome databases at NAL have increased steadily since September 1995. In January 1996, over 3,200 people accessed the livestock animal genome WWW page at: http://tetra.gig.usda.gov:8400/. The pig genome research community has particularly embraced the PigBASE node at NAL. Accesses to PigBASE have increased 8-fold from 72 in September 1995 to 573 in January 1996. Thanks for your support! As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions about the livestock animal genome WWW server at NAL. Please send email to: help@plasmid.nalusda.gov (kindly provided by Gail Juvik).


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The HUGO Comparative Genome Workshop which was held on December 3-6 on Frasier Island, Australia will be written up in the HUGO Comparative Genome Mapping Committee report to be published in Mammalian Genome early this year. It will include a report on pig gene mapping. The entire report should be quite interesting.


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This summer will be an important time for meetings as the the International Society of Animal Genetics (ISAG) meeting will be held in Tours, France from July 21-26, 1996. The meeting includes posters, special talks and several workshops. Of special interest is the Pig Gene Mapping Workshop which is held every two years under the auspices of ISAG. The workshop will be on July 22, 1996. The current ISAG pig gene mapping committee is - Alan Archibald (Roslin), Merete Fredholm (Copenhagen), Joel Gellin (Toulouse), Gary Rohrer (Clay Center) and Max Rothschild (Ames). Since travel to the meeting is expected to be expensive there may be some partial support for active members of the swine genome committee. Please contact me if you need some support.


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Several of the meetings reported in Pig Genome Update including the Swine in Biomedical Research and the HUGO Comparative Genome Workshop have received some funding from the U.S. Swine Genome Coordination effort. If you have a worthwhile meeting and would like support please visit with the Coordinator concerning your request.


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The ISAG Pig Workshop in Ghent and the The HUGO Comparative Genome Workshop each printed small sets of abstracts. We have sent out several copies to a number of peopele. Anyone wishing a copy of the pig abstracts can request copies free of charge by please contacting me at mfrothsc@iastate.edu .

Got an idea to share resources? We are always looking for ideas from pig gene mappers. In the past people have suggested sharing primers, DNA and information about databases. We already have an extensive list of shared primeres and this year will be providing flurescent primers. Other ideas of services that can be provided as part of the coordination effort are under consideration. Your thoughts would be appreciated.


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Educational efforts continue to be important for all of us. In the past several items including bibliographies on gene mapping and workshops and written materials on gene mapping have been shared in this newsletter. Recently an undergraduate honors student at Iowa State University, Ms. Laura Kingdom, designed a WWW site to teach students and producers about pig gene mapping. The site is called PIG GENES and can be reached at http://www.genome.iastate.edu. If other such sites exist please let me know.


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Upcoming meetings:

Contributions to Pig Genome Update 18 including short meeting announcements are always welcome. Please send by the 10th of April.


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                    Max Rothschild
                    U.S. Pig Genome Coordinator
                    2255 Kildee Hall, Department of Animal Science
                    Iowa State University
                    Ames, Iowa 50011
                    Phone: 515-294-6202, Fax: 515-294-2401
                    mfrothsc@iastate.edu

cc: Dick Frahm, CSREES and Roger Gerrits, ARS
U.S. PIG GENOME COORDINATION PROJECT
Paid for by funds from the NRSP-8
USDA/CSREES sponsored
Pig Genome Coordination Program
http://www.genome.iastate.edu/
Mailing list: angenmap@db.genome.iastate.edu

© US Pig Genome Coordination Program