3SR: Sustainable Solutions for Small Ruminants

The three-year 3SR project, which is funded through the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme, brings together a strong, truly international consortium of 14 partners from 11 countries. Its main focus is to mine genomic information of sheep and goats to deliver a step-change in the understanding of the genetic basis of three traits that have an important influence on sustainable production, health and welfare, namely; mastitis susceptibility, resistance to nematodes (sheep & goats) and ovulation rate (sheep only). The project builds on existing research resources in the major sheep and goat producing member states to discover and verify (in commercial populations) selectable genetic markers and causative mutations. Next generation genomic technologies, along with comparative and functional genomics combined with targeted genome sequencing and extensive in silico analyses are being applied to dissect genetic components controlling these traits. Concurrently, the project will deliver significant improvements in available genomic information and technologies for these species. The work on genome resources is being undertaken in close collaboration with the International Sheep Genome Consortium (ISGC) and the International Goat Genome Consortium (IGGC) and will make use of complementary resources provided by major research projects in Europe, Australasia, USA, Argentina and China. With the aim to improve data accessibility and mining, a 3SR-dedicated web interface has been developed, mainly constituted by a Genome Browser and a Genome Mining Tool available through the project website (http://www.3srbreeding.eu).