SASKATOON – Sometimes science can be a matter of luck.
Sheila Schmutz, a molecular geneticist at the University of Saskatchewan’s department of animal and poultry science, is working on a worldwide project to map every bovine gene.
Her lab is working on locating the genes on just one of the 60 bovine chromosomes, called chromosome one.
The task is daunting. There are literally hundreds of genes on each chromosome.
What she and her colleagues have found in the mapping process could have enormous implications for the industry.
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They’ve discovered a marker for the gene which controls whether cattle are horned or not – the polled gene.
“It was pure and simple luck that an important economic trait would actually be there,” Schmutz said at a University of Saskatchewan Beef Symposium held last week.
The discovery means DNA testing should eventually be able to reveal if an animal is homozygous polled. And that means all of its offspring would carry only the polled gene and therefore be guaranteed polled.
Better yet, polled is a dominant trait. “The gene in cattle has nothing to do with sex.”
To test the accuracy of the find, Schmutz carried out field research with real cattle herds. Sires were polled and cows horned, but each pair had both polled and horned offspring. As it turned out, many of the bovine families she used resulted from embryo transfer and all were Charolais.
By looking for different patterns of DNA, and using a process of elimination, the lab was able to successfully identify calves that were homozygous polled.
The technique is still being refined. Because the first genetic marker Schmutz used to identify the polled gene is only 80 percent accurate, she needed genetic material from an animal’s parents, and its siblings, to narrow down which calves are homozygous polled.
As the experiment has progressed, Schmutz said two markers have been found that are 99 percent accurate. Eventually, she will find the polled gene itself, which could eliminate the need to have genetic material from all members of a family before homozygous polled calves can be identified.
If all goes well, that could take as little as a year. Until then, large-scale commercial testing for the polled gene won’t be feasible.
“For the average rancher, who might want to send in a straw of semen or a vial of blood, we’re not there yet,” she said.
