Objectives
Introduction
Using high-throughput genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, proteomics, and gene-editing techniques to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying skeletal muscle growth and development in pigs and mice; Using biological information, molecular and cellular biology to elucidate the function and expression regulation mechanisms of skeletal muscle growth and development related genes and non-coding RNAs at the molecular, cellular and individual levels.
Research Areas
Yuwen Liu
1、Industry-oriented genomic selection breeding system: Develop low-cost and high-density whole-genome genotyping methods, and genomic selection as well as genomic mating technologies combined with multi-omics data, and apply them in pig breeding
2、Illustrating genetic mechanism of complex traits: Develop experimental and computational methods to analyze the genetic mechanism of complex traits combined with multi-omics data, and apply them in the illustration of the genetic mechanism of economic traits of pigs, and provide functional genes and loci for pig breeding
3、Next generation pig breeding platform based on synthetic biology: Develop methods to quantify the activity of regulatory elements in animals in high throughput, design artificial regulatory elements and cell circuits, and use gene editing technology to import artificially designed components and circuits, so as to fine-regulate important economic traits of pigs
Associate researcher
Wenlong Ma
Wenlong Ma, Associate Research. He received his bachelor's degree at 2010 and his PhD at 2020 from Northwest A&F University. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Genomics, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences from 2020 to 2023. His research mainly focuses on deep mining analysis and modeling of big data, especially on the field of biological breeding. He has developed a series of bioinformatics software and online service websites, as well as innovating genomic selection algorithms by integrating multi-omics functional data and deep learning technology to analyze the genetic basis of complex traits in economic animals. These works have been published in Planta, Interdisciplinary Sciences: Computational Life Sciences, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, Briefings in Bioinformatics and other high-level journals, with single highest citation more than 140 times from Google Scholar.
Postdoc
Lingna Xu
Lingna Xu, a postdoctor in Yuwen Liu’s research group, earned her Ph.D. degree in 2020 from China Agricultural University. Her research focus on identifying cis-regulatory elements in non-coding regions and measuring their activity utilizing high-throughput technologies. She aims to dissect the genetic basis of complex traits, employing techniques such as AAV-STARR-seq and MPRA.
Zhaohong Li
Personal Profile: Graduated in 2021 with a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from Northwest A&F University, my research direction was evolutionary genomics. My present research primarily concentrates on deciphering the syntactic rules of cis-regulatory elements in genomes through advanced deep learning models. Building upon this, my work involves the meticulous design and synthetic reconstruction of cis-regulatory elements.
Saixian Zhang
Saixian Zhang obtained his Ph.D. from Huazhong Agricultural University in 2022, with a joint doctoral training program for two years at Case Wes...
PI
The major focus of our group is to decipher the molecular mechanisms behind complex traits and disease in pig by integrating multi-omics approaches, which could lay a foundation for breed improvement both in theory and technique.
1) Detect potential genetic loci and regulatory elements under pork production and disease, and reveal the relationships between genetic variations and complex traits;
2) Elucidate the evolutionary history of genetic and phenotypic diversity in pig domestication by population genetics approaches;
3) Study the molecular mechanisms of developmental trajectory for porcine skeletal muscle and other key organs.