PhD title: Developing Ovine immune 'omics for sheep genomic improvement
Including projects on:
- The transcriptome of sheep immune cells
Summary: Sheep gene expression has been deeply characterised in many tissue types, including immune tissues. This work will contribute to this understanding by sequencing circulating immune cells sorted from blood.
- eQTLs related to immune function in sheep
Summary: eQTL studies can help us to identify genetic variants that are influencing gene expression. This study type has been carried out in livestock species such as cattle and pigs, but this project will contribute one of the first eQTL datasets in sheep.
- Digital cell-sorting to provide cell level resolution while expanding RNA-sequencing to the flock level
Summary: There is currently a need to expand gene expression studies in sheep; from small number of animals to larger groups that can represent small flock sizes. At the same time, advances in technologies allow us to examine the transcriptome at finer resolutions, down to the cell level. However, single-cell sequencing is expensive and has it's own technical challenges. It is possible to combine larger sample sizes and finer resolution using digital cell-sorting tools such as CiberSort. This project will create the reference panels necessary to use such tools for the first time in sheep.
