Presented by Richard Osei-Amponsah, University of Ghana, at the Workshop on Animal Genetic Research for Africa (Biosciences for Farming in Africa), Nairobi, 10-11 September 2015

1. Animal genetic research for Africa—Strategies and
opportunities for improving outreach and public
understanding
Richard Osei-Amponsah, University of Ghana
Animal Genetic Research for Africa (Biosciences for
Farming in Africa), Nairobi, 10-11 September 2015

2. presentation outline
-research
-communication avenues
-challenges
-opportunities

3. 3
motivation - Ghana’s AnGR

4. - characterization of local animal genetic resources and their production systems
- genetic and phenotypic characterisation of local chickens in Ghana (PhD project)
- demographic analysis of beef herds in Southern Ghana (MPhil project)
- a study of the factors affecting growth curve parameters in N’dama and its
crossbreds at the Agricultural Research Station, ARS, Kpong (BSc. project).
research

5. - genome wide association study of disease resistance, growth, meat quality and
reproduction traits in the Ashanti Dwarf Pig (ADP) of Ghana and its crosses with
exotic breeds
- origin and phylogenetic status of the local ADP of Ghana based on evidence
from mtDNA analysis, MC1R and Y-chromosome haplotypes.
current research

6. 6
Ashanti Dwarf Pig (ADP)

7. 7
genetic dilution?

8. 8
Guinea savannah zone
47 pigs
CR
NR
GAR
AR
UWR
ER
Forest zone
52 pigs
Coastal savannah zone
64 pigs
sampling

9. - a 620bp fragment of the D-loop region of mtDNA from 142 animals was amplified
by touchdown PCR and purified
- amplicons were sequenced and traces edited using Chromas version 2.2
- sequences were viewed using the MultAlin program and within the ClustalW2
program
- BLAST (in NCBI) was used to view and obtain the consensus sequence of D-loop
region for each individual relative to pig mtDNA sequence
analysis of mtDNA D-loop
9

10. - genetic distances between whole control region sequences were calculated using
Kimura's two-parameter substitution model and with the same pattern among
lineages and uniform rates among sites, as implemented in the MEGA software
- phylogenetic tree was produced using MRBAYES with bootstrap = 1,000,000
replicates
- the frequency of each haplotype in each population and the frequency of Asian and
European haplotypes were calculated
(Kimura et al., 2001; Edgar, 2004; Tamura et al., 2011)
phylogenetic analysis
10

11. 11
Mitochondrial data:
haplotypes are closely
related to animals from
Northern Europe, China and
Burma
Guinea savannah zone
47 pigs
CR
NR
GAR
AR
UWR
ER
Forest zone
52 pigs
Coastal savannah zone
64 pigs

12. 12
N=8/20 12/22 14/14 26/4 10/2 26/12
MC1R coat colour alleles
Guinea savannah zone
47 pigs
CR
NR
GAR
AR
UWR
ER
Forest zone
52 pigs
Coastal savannah zone
64 pigs

13. SNP genotyping
13
- genotyping was done at the genome analysis facility of the
Mammalian Molecular Genetics Research Group, Cambridge
University following the Illumina protocol
- 72 Ghanaian local pigs were genotyped with the Illumina’s porcine
SNP60 beadchip (Ramos et al., 2009)
- the use of a large number of markers permits a more rigorous
analysis of genetic relationships

14. 14
genotyping

15. 15
Overall genetic relationships

16. communication
- stakeholder workshops
- seminars and special lectures
- conferences and technical meetings
- journal articles
- others eg. book chapters

17. challenges
- stakeholders – policy makers, farmers, extension agents, media personnel
- funding
- lack of human and institutional capacity

18. opportunities
- training of more animal scientists
- organising stakeholder seminars
- building capacity of livestock farmers
- encouraging publication in local journals/newspaper articles
- outreach programmes and media soirees

19. 19
Acknowledgements

20. 20
Thanks for your support, attendance and attention !!!