Agriculture Genetically Modified Organisms

GMO Cows – Why Gene Editing Would Be of Benefit

September 5, 2014

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September 5, 2014 – I know that this subject will bother those who equate anything genetically modified with Frankenstein’s monster. Hence the term Frankenfoods to describe GM crops. But genome editing or recombinetics, a new term, is being done in medical laboratories using animal test subjects to help treat human diseases that we have been unable to find a suitable alternative strategy. So if it works in the lab with mice and zebrafish, why not with livestock? The only difference between the lab and agricultural animals is that the GM enhancements would give farmers herds with desirable inheritable traits in a shorter period of time than if were to rely on nature or selective breeding over generations.

And what are dairy farmers looking for in GM cows? Hornless herds apparently. Holsteins which are the breed of choice in the North American dairy industry, have horns and some farmers try to remove them through surgery or by other means. The latter which includes burning the horns has led to the laying of charges of animal cruelty.

Molecular geneticist, Scott Fahrenkrug, at University of Minnesota, thinks there is a better way and is working on hornless Holsteins using TALENs in his laboratory. I have written about TALENs in previous blog postings. It is a gene editing tool. With it you can snip out segments of DNA representing undesirable traits such as horns. Undesirable? Why? Because horns lead to both human and animal workplace accidents. TALENs also lets geneticists add other desirable traits such as making an animal more heat tolerant (not a bad thing with atmospheric warming on the rise), or improving the quality and amount of milk a dairy cow produces.

Our old way of making such improvements involved selective breeding, using the semen from offspring bulls to fertilize cows in hope of creating the desriable outcome in successive generations. Such a process takes years but with recombinetics it can be accomplished immediately.

Fear of GM may be the biggest inhibitor to widespread adoption of hornless Holsteins produced this way, but studying the genome, nonetheless, is already producing hornless Holstein, Jersey, Swiss Fleckviehs and Angus bulls that are in demand for breeding. This has come about because of the 1,000 Bull Genomes Project, a fully-sequenced genetic database of 238 bulls from selected breeds. The results of this project may supersede Fahrenkrug efforts to accomplish the hornless trait through GM. But Fahrenkrug is not phased by this and has started his own company, Recombinetics, to commercialize his research.

The company has filed patents related to accelerated livestock genetics. And of course with patent filing come lawyers who represent farmers equally opposed to any form of patent on GM. The patent wars on GM crops filed by companies like Monsanto, Dupont, BASF and Bayer remain a hotly contested battleground.

Fahrenkrug argues that gene-edited livestock using his patented methods fixes congenital conditions, confers better health outcomes for the animals and eliminates undesirable characteristics. He believes such improvements should be patentable. He also believes there should be acceptance of this technology because it means more sustainable livestock production in a world where growing demand for food and in particular high protein products is highly desired. He further argues that the work he is doing doesn’t involve introducing any new genetic information to the species. There is no transgenic insertion. Only undesirable traits are eliminated and desirable ones enhanced.

For those who fear GM and equate it with Frankenfoods, the idea of milk from a GM dairy herd is anathema. Dairy farmers are cognizant of this fear because milk has always been seen as a “natural” product. But hornless dairy herds are going to come about whether it happens because of the 1,000 Bulls Genomes Project or Recombinetics. The age of accelerated livestock genetics is moving out of the lab.