Surrogate chickens will lay eggs of endangered bird species

Yulia Vorobyova, Vesti

Genome editing once again gives amazing results. This time biologists and geneticists from Scotland managed to make surrogate mothers out of laying hens. It is assumed that they will lay eggs of endangered and exotic bird species.

The authors of the study from the Roslin Institute, which is a "division" of the University of Edinburgh, used the TALEN method. This is a way of making a break in the DNA with its subsequent "healing".

The technology actually looks like this. At the first stage, scientists "turn off" the DDX4 gene, which is responsible for reproductive ability, and as a result, chickens lose the ability to lay eggs on their own. This does not affect the health of birds in any way.

As experts explained, the DDX4 gene is important for the production of so-called primordial germ cells (in birds they provide the appearance of eggs).

At the next stage, chickens with an edited genome are implanted with donor germ cells of other breeds while they develop in the egg. As a result, surrogate chickens are born, which, growing up, can lay eggs containing all the genetic information of donor breeds.

"These chickens will help save rare breeds of poultry and protect their biodiversity from negative economic and climatic impacts," said the author of the work Mike McGrew.

In addition, as the researchers write, surrogate chickens will help improve the production of so-called commercial laying hens and birds with high quality meat. The technology can also contribute to the reproduction of species resistant to infections, for example, avian influenza.

A team of biologists and geneticists has already collected more than 500 cell samples from 25 different breeds. Now they are kept in a special chamber at a temperature of minus 150 degrees Celsius, which guarantees the viability of cells for decades.

Mike McGrew admits that so far the experiments have been successful only with chickens, but in the future the team plans to turn females and other types of domestic birds into surrogate mothers. At a minimum, this should be possible for closely related breeds, such as geese and ducks, experts specify.

The scientists presented the results of their experiments at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston. A scientific article published in the journal Development (Taylor et al., Efficient TALEN-mediated gene targeting of chicken primordial germ cells) tells more about the study.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  21.02.2017