Are These “Double-Muscled” Pigs the Future of Meat?

By editing a single gene , researcher from South Korea and China have engineered bull that produce about twice the amount of muscle as normal pigs . The destination is to bring out leaner meat and at higher fruit , but early termination show it could be a retentive time before this jacked - up pork come along on your dinner plate .

Super - muscly livestock have been produced before . But these animal , like the famed Belgian bluish oxen , are product of meticulous breeding , and not transmissible engineering .

Belgian Blue Taurus the Bull .

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Owing to health and environmental business organisation , no genetically modified animal has ever been approved for human consumption anywhere in the world . But as David Cyranoskireportsin Nature News , a team of scientists led by Seoul National University molecular biologist Jin - Soo Kim is go for to in conclusion exchange that .

signally , the investigator were able to modify the pigs with a undivided gene tweak . Cyranoski explain :

Key to creating the double - muscled pigs is a mutation in the myostatin gene ( MSTN ) . MSTN inhibits the growth of muscle cells , hold on muscle size in check . But in some oxen , dogs and mankind , MSTN is disrupted and the muscle cells proliferate , make an unnatural bulk of muscle fiber .

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To enclose this mutant in pigs , Kim used a gene - editing technology called a TALEN , which consist of a desoxyribonucleic acid - cutting enzyme attached to a deoxyribonucleic acid - binding protein . The protein guides the hack enzyme to a specific gene inside prison cell , in this subject in MSTN , which it then trim down . The cell ’s natural hangout arrangement sew together the DNA back together , but some base pairs are often delete or add together in the process , rendering the gene dysfunctional .

The team edit pig foetal cells . After take one emended cell in which TALEN had strike hard out both copies of the MSTN factor , Kim ’s confederate Xi - jun Yin , an animal - cloning research worker at Yanbian University in Yanji , China , transferred it to an egg cell , and created 32 cloned piglets .

These results have yet to be publish , but the preliminary resolution were n’t entirely promising . Yes , the genetically jacklight - up pigs produced the desire muscle - mass , but the summons resulted in birthing difficultness owe to the shoat ’ unnatural sizing . What ’s more , only 13 of the 32 pigs live to eight months old , just two remain live , and only one is considered healthy .

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At this phase , the researcher are n’t attempt to mass produce these double - muscled squealer ; rather , they ’re skip to sell sperm for breeding with normal pigs .

appear to the future , Cyranoski claim that federal regulators , like the FDA in the United States , are more likely to accept this gene editing proficiency over other forms of inherited change because no young factor were introduced into the pig ’s genome . Technically speaking , these aren’ttransgenicorganisms .

But while most nations of the world attempt to sort out the honorable , health , and safety concerns , Kim is hoping to betray the edited Sus scrofa sperm to sodbuster in China where rule are more lax — and where requirement for pork is on the hike .

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