London

A biotechnology company is hoping to help farmers pick cash cows from bum steers, after rounding up the first draft genome sequence of cattle.

Researchers at MetaMorphix in Savage, Maryland, say they have not only completed a working draft of the genome, but have also identified some 600,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the sequence.

Geneticists can use SNPs to track down links between specific genes and the traits that they control. In the cows' case, this is likely to mean genes that make them capable of producing tender, high-quality beef.

Have you herd? The genome sequence may help farmers locate genes that beef up their cows.

At the moment, farmers only know after slaughter which cows produced the choicest cuts. “If we know in advance which animals are of superior quality then we could separate them out and put them on different feed regimes,” says Ed Quattlebaum, president and chief executive of MetaMorphix.

At 1X coverage, at which each base pair has been sequenced once on average, the draft is far from the finished article. A proposal to produce a publicly funded sequence of 5X to 6X coverage was recently deferred by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), but will be considered again next month (see Nature 417, 473; 200210.1038/417473a).

Alan Archibald, head of genomics and bioinformatics at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh, UK, and part of the group behind the NIH proposal, says that the MetaMorphix announcement makes the need for a publicly accessible sequence all the more urgent.

MetaMorphix, which intends to keep its sequence and SNP data confidential, will be hunting for genes to patent, says Archibald. “At 1X coverage the sequence isn't very impressive, but if they've identified 600,000 possible SNPs then that's a very big deal indeed, and they have a significant head start,” he adds.

The SNPs still have to be verified, says Archibald, but they could allow MetaMorphix to use more powerful genetic techniques to hunt for desirable genes in normal herds of cattle. There are fewer that 2,000 SNPs in the public domain, and other researchers have to work with pedigree research herds, making it more difficult to apply the results to farm animals.

The large number of possible SNPs has taken other researchers by surprise, although many have known about the sequence for about a year. They say it was prepared by Celera AgGen, which was bought by MetaMorphix from Celera Genomics in Rockville, Maryland, earlier this year.