Agrigenomics - Biomarker Discovery in Sheep

Sheep experience pain in response to necessary management practices like castration and tail docking, as well as during lambing and due to other natural hazards of life. At the very least that is acute pain but, if sheep are anything like humans and other mammals, then a proportion of sheep will also experience some form of persistent pathological pain.

To address wellbeing concerns around pain in sheep, objective pain measurement tools are needed to answer questions like: Do you have pain now? How much pain are you in? And have you had pain in the past? This then enables us to develop, and demonstrate the effectiveness of, pain mitigation strategies, as well as to provide objective evidence in support of claims of pain mitigation, and to support ongoing evaluation of best practice and evidence–based recommendations for managing sheep wellbeing.

Led by Professor Mark Hutchinson, researchers at the University of Adelaide’s Neuroimmunopharmacology Lab and Davies Livestock Research Centre are working to identify objective blood-based biomarkers of acute and persistent pain in sheep, with funding support from the Australian Research Council, Meat and Livestock Australia, the University of Adelaide’s Davies Livestock Research Centre, and the Livestock SA Sheep Industry Fund.

As part of this research program, the team have been working with SAGC to identify plasma and blood transcriptomic changes that occur in response to painful husbandry procedures, that could be used to diagnose/quantify acute or persistent pain in sheep.

Small RNA-seq of nearly 500 sheep plasma samples has been completed to date, alongside ongoing optimisation of protocols for sheep whole blood total RNA sequencing. By combining these blood transcriptomic data with blood cell phenotyping, brain and spinal cord histology and histochemistry, behaviour, and quantitative sensory testing data from their sheep trials, the team aim to not only identify novel objective pain biomarkers, but also build an integrated picture of the short- and long-term molecular, cellular, systems and behavioural consequences of these painful marking procedures, and the mechanisms underlying any transition to and maintenance of chronic pain, in sheep.