Exploiting transgenic technology in livestock

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The techniques that are used to generate transgenic livestock are inefficient and expensive. This, coupled with the fact that most agriculturally relevant traits are complex and controlled by more than one gene, has restricted the use of transgenic technology. New methods for modifying the genome will underpin a resurgence of research using transgenic livestock. Recently, lentiviral vectors have been shown to offer an efficient transgene delivery system. We used this vector to deliver a green fluorescent protein expressing transgene; 31% of injected/transferred eggs resulted in a transgenic founder animal and 95% of founder animals displayed green fluorescence. This is substantially more efficient than the standard pronuclear microinjection method, indicating that lentiviral transgene delivery may be a general tool with which to efficiently generate transgenic mammals. Due to the dramatic efficiencies achieved with this new methodology, fundamental research projects utilising transgenesis can now be performed in large animals. Building from this base and the recent demonstration of state-of-the-art transgenic technologies this research portfolio aims; to generate transgenic livestock that: (a) address fundamental biological issues, and (b) enable disease and novel treatments of disease to be evaluated.

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