Ruminal microbiology, biotechnology, and ruminant nutrition: progress and problems.

Present methods for manipulating ruminal fermentation that involve microbial biotechnology include dietary ionophores, antibiotics, and microbial feed additives. Developments in recombinant DNA technology mean that future methods will have a much wider scope. It has been suggested that genetically engineered ruminal microorganisms will be used in future to improve ruminal fermentation. Several technical objectives must be achieved before that will be possible. First, methods for inserting foreign or modified genes into ruminal microorganisms and ensuring their efficient expression must be developed. Broad host range plasmids and transposons have been used successfully to introduce new DNA into ruminal bacteria, as have shuttle vectors constructed as chimeras of plasmids from ruminal species and Escherichia coli. Although so far only antibiotic resistance markers have been transferred, the prospects for introducing other genes into selected ruminal bacteria are excellent. Second, the expression of the gene product(s) should be known to be nutritionally useful in vivo. A few examples of this type of benefit have been demonstrated, and many more proposed, including polysaccharidases for improving fiber digestion, methods for improving the amino acid composition of ruminal bacteria, and breakdown of plant toxins. Third, the difficulty that has been examined least, yet may prove most difficult to overcome, is that mechanisms have to be found for introducing and maintaining the new strain in the mixed ruminal population. Factors governing the survival of new strains in vivo are ill-understood, and attempts to select in favor of added new organisms have so far been unsuccessful. Because of the last obstacle, it may be advantageous, at least in the short term, to use nonruminal organisms, such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, rather than indigenous ruminal species as a vehicle for implementing the benefits of recombinant DNA technology to ruminal fermentation. Yeast is already in widespread use as a feed additive, so no enrichment is necessary; and its genetics are already well known. Alternatively, adding particular enzymes to the diet may achieve some of the objectives described above, with the advantage that the manipulation could be achieved without the release of a recombinant microorganism.