my country has made breakthroughs in the research of sheep genomeics and gene editing short -tailed fine hair breeding

Xinhua News Agency, Urumqi, August 11th (Reporter Sun Zhe and Zhou Shengbin) are both fine sheep, but the tail behind him is long and short. This seems to be the only difference between the two sheep in front of him. However, there is a lot of "particular".

As the latest cooperation research results of the Chinese Agricultural University and the Xinjiang Academy of Animal Husbandry Sciences, after five years of hard work, researchers have obtained a genetic editing short -tailed fine hair sheep for the first time. This is an important cause of the two fine -haired sheep's appearance.

Gender resources are the strategic resources for ensuring the supply of national food security and important agricultural products. It is a material basis for the development of the original innovation and modern germs of agricultural science and technology. The existing stock of Chinese sheep reached 1.73 million, accounting for about 13.5%of the world's, but the excellent meat and milk breeding sheep still need to be imported, which restricts the development of the sheep industry in my country and the revitalization of the seed industry.

According to Liu Mingjun, a researcher at the Xinjiang Academy of Animal Husbandry Sciences, the tail length is one of the significant characteristics of the breed of sheep. At present, most modern sheep varieties in the world, especially those with hair -produced fine sheep and meat -producing Tucks sheep, are long tails. However, long tails are likely to cause infectious diseases, which will also affect natural mating and reduce reproduction rates. Fine hair sheep will also reduce wool quality due to pollution. Therefore, long -tailed sheep need to break the tail during the lamb stage.

"The disconnection consumes manpower and material resources. The lamb may also cause infection due to broken tails, causing development to affect production performance, and even cause death. Cultivating excellent short -tailed sheep varieties that do not require broken tails are one of the goals of sheep breeding in the world. "He says.

In order to solve the problem of germplasm resources, Professor Li Menghua of the School of Animal Science and Technology of China Agricultural University and Liu Mingjun, a researcher team of Liu Mingjun, Xinjiang Institute of Animal Husbandry Sciences, used wild Pamir Pan Sheep and Tibetan sheep hybridization groups, as well as Harbell sheep and Tucks sheep. The non -rectified chromosomal reorganization and assembly, production performance and body shape related candidate gene mining and verification, gene editing and creation of new quality resources have made important progress. The results of the research have recently been published online in the international well -known academic journal "Genome Studies".

At the Xinjiang sheep molecular breeding test base, the reporter learned that the short -tailed sheep tail vertebra with the shortest tail vertebrae was only 11, and the number of long -tailed sheep tail vertebra that compared the reference was generally 18 to 22.

"We use the newly discovered TBXT gene mutation. On the one hand, the mutant site is marked with the mutation site as the molecular label. The grassland meat sheep breeding core group currently carried out in Yili, Xinjiang is short -tail selection, significantly reduced the length of the tail, and to cultivate short -tailed meat sheep sheep. Established the core group of molecular selection technology and breeding. "Liu Mingjun introduced," On the other hand, we conducted TBXT gene editing of fine hair sheep, and formed a genetic editing short -tailed fine hair breeding resource group, in order to cultivate short -tailed fine hair sheep sheep sheep sheep sheep sheep sheep sheep sheep sheep sheep. Create a precious germplasm resources. "

Li Menghua introduced that the research results provided new ideas for the breeding of livestock, and also provided new species of quality resources and scientific and technological support for my country's further accelerating the genetic improvement of sheep's genetic improvement and the cultivation of new varieties.

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