Most traits of importance in the swine industry are affected by both genetics and environmental factors, including nutrition, management, etc. Uterine prolapse appears to be no exception to this, says Jack Dekkers, distinguished professor of animal breeding and genetics at Iowa State University.
“In order to address issues such as uterine prolapse, an interdisciplinary approach is needed to improve swine production and address issues that arise,” Dekkers says. “The project on pig livability funded by National Pork Board and led by Jason Ross, the Lloyd Anderson professor in physiology at Iowa State University and director of the Iowa Pork Industry Center, used an interdisciplinary team of experts in reproduction, nutrition, genetics, economics, veterinary medicine, animal well-being, epidemiology, and production management, to understand why some herds have higher incidence of pelvic organ prolapse (POP).”
That’s why he’s looking forward to a new collaborative project one of his students will be part of this summer during an internship in The Netherlands with Topigs Norsvin to further explore the data in the study led by Jenelle Dunkelberger, a geneticist with Topigs Norsvin.
“The current project will add a molecular genetics and genomics approach to this interdisciplinary team, capitalizing on a dataset where there’s clear evidence of the presence of a genetic basis to uterine prolapse,” Dekkers says.
Vishesh Bhatia, a Ph.D. student in genetics in the Department of Animal Science at Iowa State University, will not only be learning about the swine industry in the Netherlands and the workings of an international swine breeding organization, but he will conduct further genetic analysis of the comprehensive data set on uterine prolapse that Topigs Norsvin has collected.
His research will be under the direction of Dekkers and Ross, in collaboration with geneticists at Topigs Norsvin.
“Having already determined that uterine prolapse has substantial heritability in the data collected by Topigs Norsvin, the objective of Vishesh’s research will be to identify regions of the genome that cause some sows to be more susceptible to uterine prolapse than others,” Dekkers says. “For this purpose, he will use the extensive data that Topigs Norsvin has collected on these sows, including genotypes at a large number of genetic markers, or locations, across the genome.”
Using knowledge about the pig genome that has been generated over the past decade through whole-genome sequencing and related research, Bhatia will then probe into the genes that are located in these genomic regions to identify potential mechanisms that control susceptibility to uterine prolapse.
A Valuable Partnership
Developing strong partnerships between university Extension and research, coupled to industry stakeholders and collaborators, is essential to ensure that we are addressing the most relevant problems through our research programs, Ross explains.
“By doing this work in connection with industry, it ensures that the communication pipeline for dissemination of the research results to those who can use them is strong, thereby shortening the time from discovery of new knowledge to implementation of new practices in the industry,” Ross says.
Read more about the uterine prolapse study.
Learn more about the Pelvic Organ Prolapse Project here.
