Livestock 2.0 - genome editing for fitter, healthier, and more productive farmed animals

Abstract

The human population is growing, and as a result we need to produce more food whilst reducing the impact of farming on the environment. Selective breeding and genomic selection have had a transformational impact on livestock productivity, and now transgenic and genome-editing technologies offer exciting opportunities for the production of fitter, healthier and more-productive livestock. Here, we review recent progress in the application of genome editing to farmed animal species and discuss the potential impact on our ability to produce food.

Fig. 1

Pathways to ‘Livestock 2.0’. A brief summary of the developments in livestock breeding and what new technologies might offer to the industry. Selective breeding and genomic selection have already improved productivity and disease resistance in livestock significantly. Genome editing and transgenesis could facilitate step improvements through (i) rapidly increasing the frequency of favorable trait-associated alleles, (ii) introgression of favorable alleles from other breeds/species without linkage drag, and (iii) creation of de novo favorable alleles. A key challenge will be the identification of genome-editing targets, which will require a combination of high-quality annotated livestock genomes, well-powered genome-wide association studies, reverse-genetic screens (e.g. genome-wide CRISPR knock-out), and high-resolution knowledge of the biology of the target traits. CRISPR, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat