GenoRobust Research Activities

Our research aims to identify levers to increase the robustness of animals by restoring a better balance between production and adaptability. We specifically focus on early development of phenotypes and search for indicators to improve robustness. In this context, we analyze the genetic architecture of metabolic processes involved in the balance between production and adaptation (especially energy metabolism of muscle and liver, feto-maternal interaction with studies on endometrium and placenta), and epigenetic mechanisms that influence them. The approach is integrative (system biology and genetics) and interdisciplinary (genetics and epigenetics, metabolic and neuroendocrine physiology, genomics and bioinformatics, biomathematics).
The team will then focus on the pig and duck species to study the early development and search for indicators to improve survival. We will focus mainly on 3 axes.

Axis 1: Fine phenotyping and individual variability.
We mainly explored late stages of gestation and birth. We aimed:
- to better characterize the influences of the genotype, the sense of crossbreeding (reciprocal crossing animals), the information coming from the divergent lines for feed efficiency and corticotrope axis, the genomic information coming from the maternal or paternal genome.
- to better characterize the molecular events regulating the muscle genes expression in late gestation related to survival at birth.

Axis 2: Effect of perinatal environment with analysing metabolic programming.
In the duck model, we developed a model of nutritional programming with a maternal Methionine restricted diet. We explore the impact on egg weight and composition as well as duckling phenotype, on lipid and hepatic metabolisms from hatching until 14 weeks of age.
In pigs, we want to decipher the molecular mechanisms influenced by maternal and fetal genomes using an integrative omics approach (metabolome and gene expression), focusing simultaneously on the two adjacent tissues (placenta/endometrium).

Axis 3: Research and validation of indicators.
We currently identify biomarkers and way to predict phenotypes of interest, traits related to birth and growth, quality of the final product. The indicators we are exploring are genes expression, enzymes activity, and spectral relevance from metabolomics and from NIRS analyses. These indicators may be testing together with other types of technologies (thermography, automatic tracking…).