WSU Extension > Animal Agriculture > Zhihua Jiang

Zhihua Jiang

  1. Professor
Email Addressjiangz@wsu.edu
LocationVBR 151
Phone509-335-8761

Biography

Animal Phenomics.  Phenomics is defined as an independent discipline to study a full set of phenotypes as phenome during the life span of an organism, thus providing a basis to fully characterize the genome. As such, my research focuses on development of the central dogma of phenomics and creation of the genomically optimized livestock farming (GOLF) systems with goals to promote healthy products from healthy animals for healthy people under healthy environments. Specifically, we will find answers to this biological question: how dynamic and diverse phenomes are orchestrated by the same genome during an animal’s life span. Our basic approach is to use RNA variants to bridge the genome and phenome. RNA molecules are either protein coding or non-coding, so they can produce either “hardware” or serve as “software” with diverse functions to achieve the goal-driven phenotypes. Our Animal Phenomics research will provide a solid foundation to design genomes for desirable and superior phenomes, thus sustaining future animal production and food security locally and globally.

Specific Research Areas

  • Bulk and single cell profiling of RNA variants.
  • RNA bridged maps of complex phenotypes.
  • Pan-transcritpome assemblies and functional annotation of animal genomes.
  • Development of the central dogma of phenomics.

Currently recruiting graduate students for the Genome-to-Phenome PhD Program.

Most Recent Publications

For a complete list of publications, please visit https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zhihua_Jiang4/

  1. Fang L, Teng J, Lin Q, Bai Z, Liu S, Guan D, Li B, Gao Y, Hou Y, Gong M, Pan Z, Yu Y, Clark EL, Smith J, Rawlik K, Xiang R, Chamberlain AJ, Goddard ME, Littlejohn M, Larson G, MacHugh DE, O’Grady JF, Sørensen P, Sahana G, Lund MS, Jiang Z, Pan X, Gong W, Zhang H, He X, Zhang Y, Gao N, He J, Yi G, Liu Y, Tang Z, Zhao P, Zhou Y, Fu L, Wang X, Hao D, Liu L, Chen S, Young RS, Shen X, Xia C, Cheng H, Ma L, Cole JB, Baldwin RL 6th, Li CJ, Van Tassell CP, Rosen BD, Bhowmik N, Lunney J, Liu W, Guan L, Zhao X, Ibeagha-Awemu EM, Luo Y, Lin L, Canela-Xandri O, Derks MFL, Crooijmans RPMA, Gòdia M, Madsen O, Groenen MAM, Koltes JE, Tuggle CK, McCarthy FM, Rocha D, Giuffra E, Amills M, Clop A, Ballester M, Tosser-Klopp G, Li J, Fang C, Fang M, Wang Q, Hou Z, Wang Q, Zhao F, Jiang L, Zhao G, Zhou Z, Zhou R, Liu H, Deng J, Jin L, Li M, Mo D, Liu X, Chen Y, Yuan X, Li J, Zhao S, Zhang Y, Ding X, Sun D, Sun HZ, Li C, Wang Y, Jiang Y, Wu D, Wang W, Fan X, Zhang Q, Li K, Zhang H, Yang N, Hu X, Huang W, Song J, Wu Y, Yang J, Wu W, Kasper C, Liu X, Yu X, Cui L, Zhou X, Kim S, Li W, Im HK, Buckler ES, Ren B, Schatz MC, Li JJ, Palmer AA, Frantz L, Zhou H, Zhang Z, Liu GE; FarmGTEx Consortium. The Farm Animal Genotype-Tissue Expression (FarmGTEx) Project. Nat Genet. 2025; doi: 10.1038/s41588-025-02121-5. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 40097783.
  2. Wang G, Zhang X, Zhao X, Ren X, Chen A, Dai W, Zhang L, Lu Y, Jiang Z, Wang H, Liu Y, Zhao X, Wen J, Cheng X, Zhang Y, Ning Z, Ban L, Qu L. Genomic evidence for hybridization and introgression between blue peafowl and endangered green peafowl and molecular foundation of leucistic plumage of blue peafowl. Gigascience. 2025;14:giae124.
  3. Zhang D, Cheng J, Li X, Huang K, Yuan L, Zhao Y, Xu D, Zhang Y, Zhao L, Yang X, Ma Z, Xu Q, Li C, Wang X, Zheng C, Tang D, Nian F, Yue X, Li W, Tian H, Weng X, Hu P, Feng Y, Kalds P, Jiang Z, Zhao Y, Zhang X, Li F, Wang W. Comprehensive multi-tissue epigenome atlas in sheep: A resource for complex traits, domestication, and breeding. Imeta. 2024;3(6):e254.
  4. Zhang Y, Zhang X, Li C, Tian H, Weng X, Lin C, Zhang D, Zhao Y, Li X, Cheng J, Zhao L, Xu D, Yang X, Jiang Z, Li F, Wang W. Rumen microbiome and fat deposition in sheep: insights from a bidirectional mendelian randomization study. NPJ Biofilms Microbiomes. 2024;10(1):129.
  5. Flores CC, Pasetto NA, Wang H, Dimitrov AG, Davis JF, Jiang Z, Davis CJ, Gerstner JR. Sleep and diurnal alternative polyadenylation sites associated with human APA-linked brain disorders. NPJ Biol Timing Sleep. 2024;1(1):11.
  6. Pineda PS, Flores EB, Villamor LP, Parac CJM, Khatkar MS, Thu HT, Smith TPL, Rosen BD, Ajmone-Marsan P, Colli L, Williams JL, Low WY; 1000 Buffalo Genomes Consortium. Disentangling river and swamp buffalo genetic diversity: initial insights from the 1000 Buffalo Genomes Project. Gigascience. 2024;13:giae053.
  7. Han Y, Tu W, Zhang Y, Huang J, Meng X, Wu Q, Li S, Liu B, Michal JJ, Jiang Z, Tan Y, Zhou X, Wang H. Comprehensive analysis of single-nucleotide variants and alternative polyadenylation between inbred and outbred pigs. Int J Biol Macromol. 2024;278:134416.
  8. Beiki H, Murdoch BM, Park CA, Kern C, Kontechy D, Becker G, Rincon G, Jiang H, Zhou H, Thorne J, Koltes JE, Michal JJ, Davenport K, Rijnkels M, Ross PJ, Hu R, Corum S, McKay S, Smith TPL, Liu W, Ma W, Zhang X, Xu X, Han X, Jiang Z, Hu ZL, Reecy JM. Enhanced bovine genome annotation through integration of transcriptomics and epi-transcriptomics datasets facilitates genomic biology. 2024;13:giae019.
  9. de Jong TV, Pan Y, Rastas P, Munro D, Tutaj M, Akil H, Benner C, Chen D, Chitre AS, Chow W, Colonna V, Dalgard CL, Demos WM, Doris PA, Garrison E, Geurts AM, Gunturkun HM, Guryev V, Hourlier T, Howe K, Huang J, Kalbfleisch T, Kim P, Li L, Mahaffey S, Martin FJ, Mohammadi P, Ozel AB, Polesskaya O, Pravenec M, Prins P, Sebat J, Smith JR, Solberg Woods LC, Tabakoff B, Tracey A, Uliano-Silva M, Villani F, Wang H, Sharp BM, Telese F, Jiang Z, Saba L, Wang X, Murphy TD, Palmer AA, Kwitek AE, Dwinell MR, Williams RW, Li JZ, Chen H. A revamped rat reference genome improves the discovery of genetic diversity in laboratory rats. Cell Genom. 2024;4(4):100527.