Rumen metagenome profiles are heritable and rank the New Zealand national sheep flock for enteric methane emissions

作者：Timothy P. Bilton, Setegn Worku Alemu, K. G. Dodds, Hannah Henry, Melanie K. Hess, Ronan Jordan, Fern Booker, S. M. Hickey, N. C. Amyes, Kevin Knowler, Edgar Sandoval, Jacqueline Peers-Adams, Tracey C. van Stijn, Hayley Baird, Trevor Watson, W. E. Bain, B. A. Veenvliet, Gerard Pile, Brooke Bryson, Shannon Clarke, Patricia L. Johnson, John C. McEwan, Suzanne J. Rowe · 发表于：Genetics Selection Evolution · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1186/s12711-025-00973-3 · 被引用次数：7 · 研究领域：Ruminant Nutrition and Digestive Physiology、Genetic and phenotypic traits in livestock、Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Production

Abstract Background Global targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to meet international climate change commitments have driven the livestock industry to develop solutions to reduce methane emission in ruminants while maintaining production. Research has shown that selective breeding for low methane emitting ruminants using genomic selection is one viable solution to meet methane targets at a national level. However, this requires obtaining sufficient measures of methane on individual animals across the national herd. In sheep, one affordable method for measuring methane on-farm to rank animals on their methane emissions is portable accumulation chambers (PAC), although this method is not without its challenges. An alternative is to use a proxy trait that is genetically correlated with PAC methane measures. One such trait that has shown promise is rumen metagenome community (RMC) profiles. In this study, we investigate the potential of using RMC profiles as a proxy trait for methane emissions from PAC using a large sheep dataset consisting of 4585 mixed-sex lambs from several flocks and years across New Zealand. Results RMC profiles were generated from rumen samples collected on the animals immediately after being measured through PAC using restriction enzyme-reduced representation sequencing. We predicted methane (CH 4 ) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions (grams per day), as well as the ratio CH 4 /(CO 2 + CH 4 ) (CH 4 Ratio), from the RMC profiles and SNP-array genotyp...