Scientists have successfully created pigs that are resistant to classical swine fever, a highly contagious and often fatal viral disease. The breakthrough, achieved through gene editing, marks a significant step forward in protecting livestock from this devastating disease.
Classical swine fever, also known as hog cholera or pig plague, causes severe symptoms including fever, skin lesions, convulsions, and diarrhea, which can lead to death within 15 days. In the UK alone, periodic outbreaks since the 1960s have resulted in the culling of over 75,000 pigs.
To develop resistant pigs, scientists at Edinburgh's Roslin Institute targeted a gene responsible for producing a protein called DNAJC14, which plays a critical role in the replication of pestiviruses. They created a line of pigs with precise edits to their DNA and found that four out of four exposed to classical swine fever remained healthy, while control animals showed symptoms of the disease and high levels of the virus in their blood.
The gene-edited pigs were completely healthy after several generations of monitoring, showing no adverse effects on health or fertility. This breakthrough has significant implications for pig farming worldwide, where classical swine fever continues to pose a major threat.
The advances come as countries are relaxing rules around gene editing in agriculture. The UK's Precision Breeding Act has paved the way for gene-edited crops, while other nations such as the US, Japan, and Brazil have already approved gene-edited livestock. This research marks a major step forward in using genomics-enabled innovation to build resilience to disease in livestock populations.
According to experts, decades of genomic research have made it possible to pinpoint and precisely edit genes involved in disease resistance. Research like this is helping to create healthier animals, reduce losses for farmers affected by swine fever, and demonstrates a moral imperative to develop disease-resistant animals if it can be done safely and effectively.
Classical swine fever, also known as hog cholera or pig plague, causes severe symptoms including fever, skin lesions, convulsions, and diarrhea, which can lead to death within 15 days. In the UK alone, periodic outbreaks since the 1960s have resulted in the culling of over 75,000 pigs.
To develop resistant pigs, scientists at Edinburgh's Roslin Institute targeted a gene responsible for producing a protein called DNAJC14, which plays a critical role in the replication of pestiviruses. They created a line of pigs with precise edits to their DNA and found that four out of four exposed to classical swine fever remained healthy, while control animals showed symptoms of the disease and high levels of the virus in their blood.
The gene-edited pigs were completely healthy after several generations of monitoring, showing no adverse effects on health or fertility. This breakthrough has significant implications for pig farming worldwide, where classical swine fever continues to pose a major threat.
The advances come as countries are relaxing rules around gene editing in agriculture. The UK's Precision Breeding Act has paved the way for gene-edited crops, while other nations such as the US, Japan, and Brazil have already approved gene-edited livestock. This research marks a major step forward in using genomics-enabled innovation to build resilience to disease in livestock populations.
According to experts, decades of genomic research have made it possible to pinpoint and precisely edit genes involved in disease resistance. Research like this is helping to create healthier animals, reduce losses for farmers affected by swine fever, and demonstrates a moral imperative to develop disease-resistant animals if it can be done safely and effectively.
I was reading about this in my science textbook and I just had to share... the fact that scientists created pigs that are resistant to classical swine fever is like, totally game-changing for farmers! 
I mean, imagine if they could prevent those huge losses every year due to outbreaks - it's a total win-win! 
And the part about decades of genomic research leading up to this breakthrough is just, wow... it shows how far we've come in understanding genetics and how it can be used for good. 
Now, I'm curious to see how this technology will be rolled out globally and what other diseases farmers might be able to protect their livestock from! 
! Creating pigs that are resistant to classical swine fever is like, whoa. It's amazing what scientists have achieved with gene editing technology. The fact that four out of four exposed pigs remained healthy is mind-blowing. And the best part is that they're completely healthy after several generations, no adverse effects on health or fertility 
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. It's an exciting time for science and innovation 
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i mean what's next? editing humans too? and btw 75k pig cull in UK is crazy, sounds like they got played by the disease 
. It's crazy how much of an impact something like this could have on pig farming worldwide 
. The fact that they were able to pinpoint the DNAJC14 gene responsible for classical swine fever is just mind-blowing 
. This tech has huge potential for reducing losses for farmers and creating healthier animals 
. Can't wait to see more breakthroughs like this in the future 
! It's crazy to think about all those pigs being culled in the UK over the years because of this devastating disease 
. The fact that they've managed to create a line of pigs with precise edits to their DNA and found them to be completely healthy after several generations is just mind-blowing 
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... no more losing thousands of pigs due to disease 
. The fact that these gene-edited pigs were healthy after several generations is super promising 
. I just hope we can scale this up and make it available for other farm animals too 
. It's also interesting to see how the relaxation of rules around gene editing in agriculture has led to this breakthrough 
. But, at the same time, I'm a bit skeptical about whether this tech will stick long-term and be adopted on a large scale...and what kind of unintended consequences we might be creating 
And won't this just lead to more problems if some rogue farmer goes and edits their pigs wrong or something? 
classical swine fever is literally killing thousands of pigs in the uk alone since the 60s... 75k pigs gone 
and now scientists just created more pigs that are kinda resistant to it 
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. This breakthrough has huge implications for pig farming globally and I'm here for it! 
. And now scientists have edited that one gene and its like a total game changer 
. Four out of four pigs remained healthy after being exposed to the virus? 
that's insane! I hope this tech gets adopted worldwide ASAP, especially with all these new relaxed rules around gene editing 
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. It's like the world is catching on to the fact that science can actually be used to make our lives better, not just regulate it 
. It's also interesting to see how countries are relaxing rules around gene editing in agriculture 
. This research shows us that genomics-enabled innovation can really make a difference in creating healthier animals and reducing disease 
, this sounds too good to be true... what's the catch? They're basically playing God with genetic engineering, making a bunch of hyper-resistant pigs that could escape and wreak havoc on wild populations 
. And what about long-term effects? We don't know how these edited genes will interact with other viruses or cause unforeseen harm to our food chain 
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