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Texas A&M researcher Terje Raudsepp said she didn't dream of sequencing the horse genome during her first visit to the U.S. in 1995 for a conference that spawned the Horse Genome Project.
But according to an announcement made Thursday, an international team has reached that milestone, which could improve breeding, treatment of disease and performance traits.
"It is the ultimate map," said Raudsepp, an assistant professor of genomics at Texas A&M. "You can call it a bible, or a cookbook. ... It directs us in a much better way how to search for genes and other sequences, not only for human interest but also to make the life of horses better."
The idea during that meeting 14 years ago in Lexington, Ky., that was attended by 70 scientists from 20 countries was to learn more about the horse genome to target simple ailments such as muscle disorders, Raudsepp said.
"We were not dreaming about sequencing," the Estonia native said. "It was just too expensive."
Raudsepp joined Texas A&M colleagues Bhanu Chowdhary and Loren Skow -- all from the university's College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences -- and 60 researchers worldwide on the project, which was completed at Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass.
A report on the work was published in the current issue of Science magazine.
Chowdhary, associate dean for research and graduate studies in Texas A&M's vet school, said the research had brought a "new era in equine research."
"While the study of single traits or diseases will be significantly enhanced, it will now be possible to study complex traits governed by several genes and perform association studies between traits important to the industry and variations observed in the genome," he said in a statement.
Because horses have more than 90 hereditary conditions such as infertility, muscle disorders, allergies and inflammatory diseases that affect humans, the horse sequence could have medical benefits for a number of mammals, the researchers said.
The sequencing project, which began in 2006, received $15 million, mostly from the National Human Genome Research Institute and the National Institutes of Health, Raudsepp said.
Raudsepp has never met Twilight, the thoroughbred mare whose genome sequence was mapped, but the horse's DNA samples rest in Texas A&M freezers.
Texas A&M researchers are working on sequencing the Y chromosome, the male version that would provide more information on functions such as male fertility.
"Not a single other researcher group in the world has this information for the Y chromosome," Raudsepp said, adding that she hoped to publish something on the subject next year.
Officials noted that the work is of particular interest in Texas, which is home to more than a million horses and about 96,000 jobs in the equine industry.
