Ghana Grasscutter project

Grasscutter (Thryonomys swinderianus) is a large hystricomorph rodent which is widely distributed in sub-Saharan Africa. It is also known as greater cane rat (or aulacode in Francophone West Africa) to distinguish it from the closely related species the lesser cane rat (Thryonomys gregorianus) with overlapping habitats. In West African countries, wild grasscutters are very popular for food and are traded at high prices, causing problems such as overhunting, burning bushes for capture, and the risk of infectious diseases. For this reason, domestication of grasscutters is required, but breeding of wild individuals is not easy. Therefore, in our project, we apply the domestication method by selective breeding developed using mice and establish the foundation for promoting domestication of glasscutters. In order to succeed in domestication, we are proceeding with the analysis of the genome sequence, genome polymorphism, expressed gene, etc. of the glass cutter.