Enhancing the genetic diversity and variability of crops and livestock for the agroecological transition
We offer our expertise on pangenomics for animals and plants.
Compared to classical genomics, it has 2 main advantages: including large variations (SVs) and not only SNPs; departing from a genome of reference (usually a highly selected individual, very distant from interesting robust wild/landrace individuals).
Pangenomics is better than usual methods in capturing heritability, helping breeding, and has been applied to many species: cattle, tomato, grapevine, eggplant, etc.
It is particularly helpful in agroecology because it accurately models the biodiversity reservoir, which is a source of attenuation in the context of climate change.
Our lab develops and uses methods for pangenome graph analysis. We already have collaborations with national labs on several species (cattle, sheep, goat, wheat, apricot, oak, etc.), but we are willing to extend our collaborators in Europe. We would like to develop the use of pangenomics, and possibly conceive new methods, or apply existing ones to more cases.
