Union Minister releases ‘IndiGau’ SNP based chip for conservation of cattle breeds

 What is the News?

Union Minister of Science & Technology has launched “IndiGau’.

About IndiGau:

1. IndiGau is India’s first Cattle Genomic Chip for the conservation of pure varieties of indigenous cattle breeds like Gir, Kankrej, Sahiwal, Ongole etc.
2. Developed by: National Institute of Animal Biotechnology (NAIB), Hyderabad, an autonomous institution under the aegis of the Department of Biotechnology.

Significance of IndiGau Chip:

1. Firstly, IndiGau is purely indigenous and the largest cattle chip in the world. It has 11,496 markers (SNPs) more than that placed on 777K Illumina chips of US & UK breeds.
2. Secondly, the chip will have practical utility in the Government’s schemes to achieve the goal of conservation of our own breeds with better characteristics and help towards doubling farmers income by 2022.

About SNP Chip:

SNP stands for Single Nucleotide Polymorphism. It is a type of DNA microarray which is used to detect polymorphisms within a population.

SNP chips are DNA microarrays that test genetic variation at many hundreds of thousands of specific locations across the genome. SNP chips have proven to be excellent for studying common genetic variation, which can be used to assess ancestry as well as predisposition to many complex multifactorial diseases.