World meat industry news

A small leap for a rabbit and a giant leap for our entire industry. Scientists outside Moscow claim that they have edited the gene of an animal for the first time in order to obtain the desired characteristics. And this is not at all the same as GMO, where the gene is modified. Why the experiment made so much noise in the scientific world.

You probably won’t see anything cuter today: a newborn rabbit named Native is trying milk for the first time. Before that, there was already the most exciting thing for scientists - weighing. More than 100 grams at a rate of 60-70. A month later, next measurements are taken with us - 50 percent larger than their peers.

“Her mother, after giving birth, and it was a caesarean section, did not have milk, so here they feed her, as they say, Native. She is accustomed to attention, because she is constantly getting. Very soft, fluffy,” our correspondent Daniil Levin noted.

The gray lump is the result of more than 700 experiments by a group of scientists from two research centers. The authors edited the systemic regulator of lipid metabolism, which is responsible for weight gain. The process is also called boxing gene knockout. In other words, it is simply removed to change the metabolic processes in the body.

“A new era is coming. To carry out targeted editing and get animals with the given characteristics, with the given signs - the signs that we need. In terms of its significance, this can be compared with a nuclear project,” said Gleb Kosovsky, director of the Research Institute of Fur and Rabbit Breeding.

It is difficult to comprehend, but a rabbit - seemingly completely ordinary - in a certain sense can be called a new organism. After all, there has never been an animal with such a set of genes on the planet. Russian scientists, who were the first in the world to make a breakthrough, announce that the rabbit has not only an increased mass, but also a different quality of meat - more juicy, tasty.

“This, of course, is very good both for us and for the country. An increase in the volume of meat and a stable increase in rabbit breeding in Russia. We are ready to consider cooperation if the guys bring us or tell us to come pick them up - no problem, we will pick up and grow. Let's try, test this rabbit," said Ruslan Zvyagin, deputy general director of a rabbit breeding company.

This interest is also explained by the fact that this rabbit has nothing to do with GMO technology. Transgenic technology is the addition of another, foreign gene to the body, which provokes the accelerated growth of an animal or plant. This can cause violations and even deviations, but everything is human with the rabbit Native.

“It is very similar to IVF technologies. Our colleagues from the Research Institute of PZK received early rabbit embryos. We performed microinjections of the genome editing system. And, accordingly, they were transplanted to recipient rabbits, also specially trained,” said Yulia Silaeva, senior researcher at the Institute of Biology and Gene of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In the future, domestic researchers intend to test the experiment on other fur-bearing animals. This will be a breakthrough achievement also in medicine for the study of various pathologies and their treatment. In the meantime, everyone is waiting for the offspring that Rodnaya will have in three months. Her rabbits should also be 50% larger than standard sizes.