Institute of Animal Husbandry, Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Harbin 150086, China.
Key Laboratory of Combining Farming and Animal Husbandry, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Harbin 150086, China.
Biomolecules. 2024 Nov 5;14(11):1409. doi: 10.3390/biom14111409.
Pigs have long been integral to human society for their roles in agriculture and medicine. Consequently, there is an urgent need for genetic improvement of pigs to meet human dual needs for medicine and food. In agriculture, gene editing can improve productivity traits, such as growth rate and disease resistance, which could lower farming costs and benefit consumers through enhanced meat quality. In biomedical research, gene-edited pigs offer invaluable resources as disease models and in xenotransplantation, providing organs compatible with human physiology. Currently, with CRISPR technology, especially the CRISPR/Cas9 system emerging as a transformative force in modern genetics, pigs are not only sources of sustenance but also cornerstones of biomedical innovation. This review aims to summarize the applications of CRISPR/Cas9 technology in developing pigs that serve dual roles in agriculture and biomedical applications. Compared to ZFNs and TALENs, the CRISPR/Cas9 system offers several advantages, including higher efficiency, greater specificity, ease of design and implementation, and the capability to target multiple genes simultaneously, significantly streamlining the process of genetic modifications in complex genomes. Therefore, CRISPR technology supports the enhancement of traits beneficial for agricultural productivity and facilitates applications in medicine. Furthermore, we must acknowledge the inherent deficiencies and technical challenges of the CRISPR/Cas9 technology while also anticipating emerging technologies poised to surpass CRISPR/Cas9 as the next milestones in gene editing. We hypothesize that with the continuous advancements in gene editing technologies and successful integration of traits beneficial to both agricultural productivity and medical applications, the goal of developing dual-purpose pigs for both agricultural and medical use can ultimately be achieved.
猪在农业和医学领域一直发挥着重要作用，因此长期以来一直是人类社会的重要组成部分。因此，迫切需要对猪进行基因改良，以满足人类对医学和食品的双重需求。在农业领域，基因编辑可以改善生产性能特征，如生长速度和抗病能力，从而降低养殖成本，通过提高肉质使消费者受益。在生物医学研究中，基因编辑猪作为疾病模型和异种移植提供了非常有价值的资源，为人类生理学提供了器官相容性。目前，随着 CRISPR 技术的发展，特别是 CRISPR/Cas9 系统作为现代遗传学的变革力量的出现，猪不仅是人类的食物来源，也是生物医学创新的基石。本综述旨在总结 CRISPR/Cas9 技术在开发农业和生物医学应用双重作用的猪中的应用。与 ZFNs 和 TALENs 相比，CRISPR/Cas9 系统具有更高的效率、更大的特异性、易于设计和实施，以及同时靶向多个基因的能力，极大地简化了复杂基因组中基因修饰的过程。因此，CRISPR 技术支持对农业生产力有益的性状的增强，并促进了医学应用。此外，我们必须认识到 CRISPR/Cas9 技术的固有缺陷和技术挑战，同时也预测新兴技术有望超越 CRISPR/Cas9 成为基因编辑的下一个里程碑。我们假设，随着基因编辑技术的不断进步，以及对农业生产力和医学应用有益的性状的成功整合，开发用于农业和医学双重用途的两用猪的目标最终将能够实现。
