Sequencing the Genome of the Manx Cat

For those of you who are not familiar with the Manx Cat, the Manx Cat is a breed of "tail-less" domestic cat originating from the Isle of Man in the British Isles. Due to a natural mutation; the cats have no tail or just a stump.

Wikipedia explains it here:

The dominant trait of taillessness arises from a spontaneous mutation, the Manx taillessness gene, that eventually became common on the island because of the limited genetic diversity of island biogeography (an example of the founder effect and, at the sub-specific level, of the species-area curve)

As someone who was born and raised in the Isle of Man, I want to stress one point: The founder effect and the lack of genetic diversity on the Island may have impacted the feline population but I can safely say, it has not impacted the human population. Honest.

Why the need to sequence the genome?

Throughout history there have been a wide range of folk tales and historic theories that attempt to explain the tail-less mutation. The hybrid of a Rabbit and a Cat theory, referred to in Manga as the Cabbit. Even as a child at primary school, my limited knowledge of genomics knew this not to be true. Granted, modern science knows this not to be the case, however the genome is yet to be sequenced.

A rough draft of the cat genome was released in 2007 and a much more comprehensive version was completed in 2014. No-one is believed to have sequenced the Manx breed yet and this project aims to be the first to look at the whole genomes of Manx cats and try to discover any mutations that are unique to them.

The project is the brainchild of Rachel Glover, a Manx Scientist who works in genomics and bioinformatics. The Isle of Man has a burgeoning biomed scene and the sequencing of the Manx Cat genome seemed a novel showcase of modern technology, and also the Isle of Man. The Isle of Man has been a pioneer in many industries such as e-gaming, financial services and digital currencies;  healthcare technology and biomed are the latest growth industries.

Questions

The project intends to answer the following questions:

1. In addition to the tailless gene, which mutations are unique to the Manx cat?
2. Which other genes are involved in Manx Syndrome?
3. As the tailless gene only determines the presence of an altered tail length, what is the genetic basis for some Manx cats having a rumpy tail, some having a stumpy tail and some a long (but not quite full length) tail?
4. In the individual cats we sequence, can we find any genetic basis for any health problems they have?

The results?

The results of our experiments will be peer-reviewed and published in a scientific journal. We’re sure that along the way we’ll also find more questions in the genome data and we’re releasing a copy of the genomes to the 99 lives project at the University of Missouri so that scientists all around the world can benefit from the Isle of Man’s first genome project.

How can you help?

ServiceTech (my company) are active members of the Manx Biomed Cluster and have agreed to donate both storage and compute resource to the project. In order to sequence the genome, funds need to be raised to cover the scientific work and analysis. 

The project is being crowd-funded on Indiegogo

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/manx-cat-genome-project#/story

If you want to learn more about the project:

• Visit the Manx Cat Genome Website
• Speak to me
• Contact Rachel

The project would welcome any support, whether scientific, technical or financial.