Genetically engineered livestock: ethical use for food and medical models

The advancements, challenges, and future implications of the CRISPR/Cas9 system in swine research

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (CRISPR/Cas9) genome editing technology has dramatically influenced swine research by enabling the production of high-quality disease-resistant pig breeds, thus improving yields. In addition, CRISPR/Cas9 has been used extensively in pigs as one of the tools in biomedical research. In this review, we present the advancements of the CRISPR/Cas9 system in swine research, such as animal breeding, vaccine development, xenotransplantation, and disease modeling. We also highlight the current challenges and some potential applications of the CRISPR/Cas9 technologies.

Creating Disease Resistant Chickens: A Viable Solution to Avian Influenza?

Influenza A virus (IAV) represents an ongoing threat to human and animal health worldwide. The generation of IAV-resistant chickens through genetic modification and/or selective breeding may help prevent viral spread. The feasibility of creating genetically modified birds has already been demonstrated with the insertion of transgenes that target IAV into the genomes of chickens. This approach has been met with some success in minimising the spread of IAV but has limitations in terms of its ability to prevent the emergence of disease. An alternate approach is the use of genetic engineering to improve host resistance by targeting the antiviral immune responses of poultry to IAV. Harnessing such resistance mechanisms in a “genetic restoration” approach may hold the greatest promise yet for generating disease resistant chickens. Continuing to identify genes associated with natural resistance in poultry provides the opportunity to identify new targets for genetic modification and/or selective breeding. However, as with any new technology, economic, societal, and legislative barriers will need to be overcome before we are likely to see commercialisation of genetically modified birds.

Trio-Based Deep Sequencing Reveals a Low Incidence of Off-Target Mutations in the Offspring of Genetically Edited Goats

Unintended off-target mutations induced by CRISPR/Cas9 nucleases may result in unwanted consequences, which will impede the efficient applicability of this technology for genetic improvement. We have recently edited the goat genome through CRISPR/Cas9 by targeting MSTN and FGF5, which increased muscle fiber diameter and hair fiber length, respectively. Using family trio-based sequencing that allow better discrimination of variant origins, we herein generated offspring from edited goats, and sequenced the members of four family trios (gene-edited goats and their offspring) to an average of ∼36.8× coverage. This data was to systematically examined for mutation profiles using a stringent pipeline that comprehensively analyzed the sequence data for de novo single nucleotide variants, indels, and structural variants from the genome. Our results revealed that the incidence of de novo mutations in the offspring was equivalent to normal populations. We further conducted RNA sequencing using muscle and skin tissues from the offspring and control animals, the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were related to muscle fiber development in muscles, skin development, and immune responses in skin tissues. Furthermore, in contrast to recently reports of Cas9 triggered p53 expression alterations in cultured cells, we provide primary evidence to show that Cas9-mediated genetic modification does not induce apparent p53 expression changes in animal tissues. This work provides adequate molecular evidence to support the reliability of conducting Cas9-mediated genome editing in large animal models for biomedicine and agriculture.

Genome Editing of Pigs for Agriculture and Biomedicine

Pigs serve as an important agricultural resource and animal model in biomedical studies. Efficient and precise modification of pig genome by using recently developed gene editing tools has significantly broadened the application of pig models in various research areas. The three types of site-specific nucleases, namely, zinc-finger nucleases, transcription activator-like effector nucleases, and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein, are the main gene editing tools that can efficiently introduce predetermined modifications, including knockouts and knockins, into the pig genome. These modifications can confer desired phenotypes to pigs to improve production traits, such as optimal meat production, enhanced feed digestibility, and disease resistance. Besides, given their genetic, anatomic, and physiologic similarities to humans, pigs can also be modified to model human diseases or to serve as an organ source for xenotransplantation to save human lives. To date, many genetically modified pig models with agricultural or biomedical values have been established by using gene editing tools. These pig models are expected to accelerate research progress in related fields and benefit humans.

The growth and reproduction performance of TALEN-mediated β-lactoglobulin-knockout bucks

With the technological development of several engineered endonucleases (EENs), such as zinc-finger nucleases, transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) and CRISPR/Cas9, gene targeting by homologous recombination has been efficiently improved to generate site-specifically genetically modified livestock. However, few studies have been done to investigate the health and fertility of these animals. The purpose of the present study is to investigate if gene targeting events and a recloning procedure would affect the production traits of EEN-mediated gene targeted bucks. TALEN-mediated β-lactoglobulin (BLG) gene mono-allelic knockout (BLG (+/-)) goats and bi-allelic knockout (BLG (-/-)) buck produced by using sequential gene targeting combined with recloning in fibroblasts from BLG (+/-) buck were used to evaluate their health and fertility. Birth weight and postnatal growth of BLG (+/-) bucks were similar to the wild-type goats. None of the parameters for both fresh and frozen-thawed semen quality were significantly different in BLG (+/-) or BLG (-/-) bucks compared to their corresponding comparators. In vitro fertilization (IVF) test revealed that the proportion of IVF oocytes developing to the blastocyst stage was identical among BLG (+/-), BLG (-/-) and wild-type bucks. Conception rates of artificial insemination were respectively 42.3, 38.0 and 42.6 % for frozen-thawed semen from the BLG (+/-), BLG (-/-) and wild-type bucks. In addition, germline transmission of the targeted BLG modification was in accordance with Mendelian rules. These results demonstrated that the analyzed growth and reproductive traits were not impacted by targeting BLG gene and recloning, implicating the potential for dairy goat breeding of BLG (+/-) and BLG (-/-) bucks.

Expression of Active Fluorophore Proteins in the Milk of Transgenic Pigs Bypassing the Secretory Pathway

We describe the expression of recombinant fluorescent proteins in the milk of two lines of transgenic pigs generated by Sleeping Beauty transposon-mediated genetic engineering. The Sleeping Beauty transposon consisted of an ubiquitously active CAGGS promoter driving a fluorophore cDNA, encoding either Venus or mCherry. Importantly, the fluorophore cDNAs did not encode for a signal peptide for the secretory pathway, and in previous studies of the transgenic animals a cytoplasmic localization of the fluorophore proteins was found. Unexpectedly, milk samples from lactating sows contained high levels of bioactive Venus or mCherry fluorophores. A detailed analysis suggested that exfoliated cells of the mammary epithelium carried the recombinant proteins passively into the milk. This is the first description of reporter fluorophore expression in the milk of livestock, and the findings may contribute to the development of an alternative concept for the production of bioactive recombinant proteins in the udder.

One-step Multiplex Transgenesis via Sleeping Beauty Transposition in Cattle

Genetically modified cattle are important for developing new biomedical models and for an improved understanding of the pathophysiology of zoonotic diseases. However, genome editing and genetic engineering based on somatic cell nuclear transfer suffer from a low overall efficiency. Here, we established a highly efficient one-step multiplex gene transfer system into the bovine genome.