Applications of Omics Technologies in Livestock Production, Improvement and Sustainability

The livestock industry is facing a massive challenge to meet the increasing demand for livestock-based commodities. Decreasing fertility, immunity, feed efficiency, and poor production of commodities in animals adversely affect the livestock economy. As a solution, improving livestock health, performance, and overall well-being is necessary. Omics technology provides a better understanding of the genetic architecture of livestock that drives major economic traits. Being capable of describing global variation in gene, protein, and metabolite expression levels, Omics technology has evolved significantly in the last decade. In this review, we discuss omics technologies such as genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics, their complete workflow including data collection using various analytical techniques, data analysis using computational tools, and finally, their use in livestock animals such as marker-assisted selective breeding and candidate gene selection in genetic engineering for the production, improvement, and sustainability of livestock animals such as cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, pigs and chicken in detail for the identification and comparative analysis of markers associated with economically important traits such as milk, egg, wool, and meat. The application of these cutting-edge omics technologies gives a personalized and highly accurate research decision that is applied to the improvement and production of livestock yielding high-quality commodities which will significantly foster the livestock economy.