The last five years has witnessed the completion of reference genome projects for each of the major livestock species, along with the application of high throughput SNP genotyping to fast track gene discovery and genomic prediction. This paper explores one possible new direction in genomics and its possible impact on animal science. An international project has been initiated that aims to identify the genomic regions responsible for gene regulation, thereby providing functional annotation of animal genomes FAANG). This seeks to increase our ability to interpret variation in genome sequence and predict the resulting phenotypic consequence. This has large implications for animal science and in particular animal breeding, given a key objective of genomic prediction is to use molecular data (currently SNP) to predict genetic merit. To successfully annotate the regulatory elements in genomic sequence, the FAANG Consortium has been created to provide coordination and standardisation in data collection, uality control and analysis. Aspects of the consortium are described, along with information on Australia’s current and future contributions.
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