Quarter Horse Genome Sequenced

Researchers recently finished sequencing the genome of an 18-year-old Quarter Horse mare called Sugar.
Share
Favorite
Close

No account yet? Register

ADVERTISEMENT

What is a fitting anniversary gift for an international team of geneticists and a Thoroughbred mare called Twilight, who sacrificed a small sample of DNA to have all of her chromosomes sequenced in their entirety five years ago? Why, a second fully sequenced equine genome, of course.

A Texas A&M University research team led by Scott Dindot, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, recently finished sequencing, or “mapping,” the genome of an 18-year-old Quarter Horse mare called Sugar.

Further, Dindot and colleagues compared Sugar’s genomic map to Twilight’s and found more than 3 million differences, called genetic variants. Many of these differences were present in genes involved in sensory perception, signal transduction (inside and between cells), and immunity.

“We also found that the mare had a different number of copies of some genes relative to Twilight, which has never been reported in horses before,” Dindot relayed. “We recently completed another study looking at these copy number variants (CNVs) to help determine what the differences in copy numbers between different horse breeds mean. For example, CNVs cause many diseases in humans, and we suspect that the same might be true in horses, but more research is needed

Create a free account with TheHorse.com to view this content.

TheHorse.com is home to thousands of free articles about horse health care. In order to access some of our exclusive free content, you must be signed into TheHorse.com.

Start your free account today!

Already have an account?
and continue reading.

Share

Written by:

Stacey Oke, MSc, DVM, is a practicing veterinarian and freelance medical writer and editor. She is interested in both large and small animals, as well as complementary and alternative medicine. Since 2005, she’s worked as a research consultant for nutritional supplement companies, assisted physicians and veterinarians in publishing research articles and textbooks, and written for a number of educational magazines and websites.

Related Articles

Stay on top of the most recent Horse Health news with

FREE weekly newsletters from TheHorse.com

Sponsored Content

Weekly Poll

sponsored by:

Where do you primarily feed your horse?
327 votes · 327 answers

Readers’ Most Popular

Sign In

Don’t have an account? Register for a FREE account here.

Need to update your account?

You need to be logged in to fill out this form

Create a free account with TheHorse.com!