Pygmy hogs

During my Master studies I analyzed the DNA of the pygmy hog: a tiny, threatened pig species. It was especially during this project that I fell in love with DNA research.

I analyzed the entire DNA code, which is also called the 'genome', of six pygmy hogs (Porcula salvania). The pygmy hog is the smallest pig species in the world. It is also the most endangered species! Pygmy hogs are only found in a few places in India and are very dependent on the 'terai' grasslands. Those harbor grass species that can sometimes reach a height of eight meters!

Three of the pygmy hogs of which I studied the DNA, came from the wild. The other three came from the Pygmy Hog Conservation Program (PHCP), a breeding program that keeps and breeds this species in captivity in order to be able to release them into the wild. I also had access to the data of 32 other genomes that belonged to, in total, nine other pig species, such as the bush pig from Africa, the Javan warty pig from Asia, and the common wild boar from Eurasia. This allowed my colleagues and me to conduct so-called comparative genomics.

I investigated the genetic diversity of these animals by going through the entire DNA code using supercomputers. I really needed those strong computers: you just cannot simply open a whole genome in Microsoft Excel! I therefore learned a lot about bioinformatics. For example, I would compare the animals from the breeding program with the animals from the wild, to see if they were genetically similar. Also, I assessed the level of inbreeding, which is something that you can actually 'see' once you have a full DNA code!