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Review
. 2010 Jun 17;6(4):333-49.
doi: 10.7150/ijbs.6.333.

Water buffalo genome science comes of age

Vanessa N Michelizzi  1 , Michael V Dodson, Zengxiang Pan, M Elisabete J Amaral, Jennifer J Michal, Derek J McLean, James E Womack, Zhihua Jiang
Affiliations
Review

Water buffalo genome science comes of age

Vanessa N Michelizzi et al. Int J Biol Sci. .

Abstract

The water buffalo is vital to the lives of small farmers and to the economy of many countries worldwide. Not only are they draught animals, but they are also a source of meat, horns, skin and particularly the rich and precious milk that may be converted to creams, butter, yogurt and many cheeses. Genome analysis of water buffalo has advanced significantly in recent years. This review focuses on currently available genome resources in water buffalo in terms of cytogenetic characterization, whole genome mapping and next generation sequencing. No doubt, these resources indicate that genome science comes of age in the species and will provide knowledge and technologies to help optimize production potential, reproduction efficiency, product quality, nutritional value and resistance to diseases. As water buffalo and domestic cattle, both members of the Bovidae family, are closely related, the vast amount of cattle genetic/genomic resources might serve as shortcuts for the buffalo community to further advance genome science and biotechnologies in the species.

Keywords: Cytogenetics; Genome biotechnology.; Genome resources; Water buffalo; Whole genome mapping; next generation sequencing.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: The authors have declared that no conflict of interest exists.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
At the cytogenetic level, water buffalo chromosomes can be matched to bovine chromosomes arm for arm. Each biarmed water buffalo chromosome is derived from the fusion of two bovine acrocentrics. (a) This shows the similar banding patterns for bovine chromosomes 29 and 16 to water buffalo chromosome 5 , (b) This shows similar banding patterns for bovine chromosome 12 and water buffalo chromosome 13 .
Figure 2
Figure 2
Genome regions that have markers linked between river buffalo and cattle (Data source: 12).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Categories of 66935 water buffalo sequences deposited in the GenBank Database.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Water buffalo mitochondrial genome structure and annotation based on AY488491.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Size distributions of 64,212 water buffalo whole genome shotgun sequences deposited in the GenBank Database.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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