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Researchers from Seoul National University have created piglets with abnormal muscle growth by disrupting a gene that inhibits muscle cell growth:
Key to creating the double-muscled pigs is a mutation in the myostatin gene (MSTN). MSTN inhibits the growth of muscle cells, keeping muscle size in check. But in some cattle, dogs and humans, MSTN is disrupted and the muscle cells proliferate, creating an abnormal bulk of muscle fibres. To introduce this mutation in pigs, Kim used a gene-editing technology called a TALEN, which consists of a DNA-cutting enzyme attached to a DNA-binding protein. The protein guides the cutting enzyme to a specific gene inside cells, in this case in MSTN, which it then cuts. The cell's natural repair system stitches the DNA back together, but some base pairs are often deleted or added in the process, rendering the gene dysfunctional.
The team edited pig fetal cells. After selecting one edited cell in which TALEN had knocked out both copies of the MSTN gene, Kim's collaborator Xi-jun Yin, an animal-cloning researcher at Yanbian University in Yanji, China, transferred it to an egg cell, and created 32 cloned piglets. Kim and his team have not yet published their results. However, photographs of the pigs "show the typical phenotype" of double-muscled animals, says Heiner Niemann, a pioneer in the use of gene-editing tools in pigs who is at the Friedrich Loeffler Institute in Neustadt, Germany. In particular, he notes, they have the pronounced rear muscles that are typical of such animals. Yin says that preliminary investigations, show that the pigs provide many of the double-muscled cow's benefits — such as leaner meat and a higher yield of meat per animal. However, they also share some of its problems. Birthing difficulties result from the piglets' large size, for instance. And only 13 of the 32 lived to 8 months old. Of these, two are still alive, says Yin, and only one is considered healthy. Rather than trying to create meat from such pigs, Kim and Yin plan to use them to supply sperm that would be sold to farmers for breeding with normal pigs. The resulting offspring, with one disrupted MSTN gene and one normal one, would be healthier, albeit less muscly, they say; the team is now doing the same experiment with another, newer gene-editing technology called CRISPR/Cas9. Last September, researchers reported using a different method of gene editing to develop new breeds of double-muscled cows and double-muscled sheep (C. Proudfoot et al. Transg. Res. 24, 147–153; 2015).
A mutation in MSTN could occur naturally, and no gene transfer is involved. No genetically engineered animal has been approved for human consumption by any of the world's regulators, but the U.S. and Germany have passed on regulating gene-edited crops that do not incorporate new DNA in the genome.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Tuesday July 07 2015, @03:33PM
For the win!
(Score: 3, Touché) by bob_super on Tuesday July 07 2015, @03:39PM
Well ... no.
You are thinking about double-fat pigs, these are double-muscled.
Eat enough of either and you'll get a double-sized heart.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @03:44PM
Super mutant pigs
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @04:35PM
Or Super Swine sounds better. With all that extra muscle it has super strength and even super speed.
(Score: 3, Funny) by mhajicek on Tuesday July 07 2015, @04:30PM
They'll still upcharge for double meat.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @03:55PM
Our new gourmet-tasting, interspecies mixed martial arts buttkicking, $6 million pig overlords.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Tuesday July 07 2015, @11:14PM
"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology; better, stronger, tastier than he was before."
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 3, Funny) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday July 07 2015, @04:13PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RV_HHkunTE [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Tuesday July 07 2015, @07:16PM
I was going to post this, but you beat me to it :^)
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 3, Insightful) by KBentley57 on Tuesday July 07 2015, @04:35PM
While I applaud their efforts, the "double muscling" effect via gene manipulation has been demonstrated in other mammals (mice, cows, ect..) for well over a decade. That fact that it is a pig is minimal in my eyes.
What is more interesting to me, is that the effect was very small in modern domesticated cattle. We've bred them so well, with such selectivity, that they are basically at their muscular capacity.
(Score: 4, Informative) by KBentley57 on Tuesday July 07 2015, @05:21PM
For the curious, a link to the study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC24998/ [nih.gov]
(Score: 1) by Snort on Wednesday July 08 2015, @12:33PM
Were you unable to download the open access PDF by following the DOI link?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @05:26PM
I think the 'breakthrough' here is to have done it in something closer to humans on the genetic scale.
I for one cannot wait to welcome our SuperMuscled, Gene-Modified, Trans-Human Overlords. All Hail Arny!
(Score: 1) by KBentley57 on Tuesday July 07 2015, @05:28PM
It's the same gene in all the animals mentioned, the 'myostatin sector' of the DNA. I don't think doing it in pigs gets us any closer than we were to doing it in humans. I've been wildly wrong in the past thought!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @07:16PM
There is a German kid, the child of two athletes, who has this. He's pretty much Bam Bam in real life.
Well, he's probably grown up now.
(Score: 4, Informative) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday July 07 2015, @10:44PM
Belgian Blues are monsters because they have been bred for this gene, [wikipedia.org] at least prior to us knowing what genes are.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday July 08 2015, @08:35AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @05:56PM
That's the first thing I thought of.
(Score: 1) by archfeld on Tuesday July 07 2015, @07:05PM
Super muscled pigs that go feral and become massively aggressive in less than 3 generations. Imagine a Hogzilla with double the muscle and a ravenous appetite.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Tuesday July 07 2015, @08:08PM
Feral, hell--some redneck'll breed 'em with razorbacks and set 'em loose so's he'll have sumthin' FUN ta shoot!
(Score: 2, Funny) by archfeld on Tuesday July 07 2015, @11:21PM
Some red neck nothing, it will be a producer looking for a new 'reality' show.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @10:14PM
Just imagine Animal Farm with these pigs... Animal Mortal Kombat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @10:51PM
a monkey with three asses.
Seriously, I thought the future was predicted by South Park.
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Wednesday July 08 2015, @12:16AM
I wish. "Soon you'll have more anuses than you ever thought possible"
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @06:53AM
Pigs are for eating, not wanking off. Our most highly trained members of the species are now spending thier time wanking pigs. Seriously though, who is funding this gmo hype? Last i read a paper where they actually checked for off target mutations and they found a bunch of them (dozens that they detected, as I recall), and that is supposed to be an improvement. If you treat cells with some mutagen and then select only a few that result randomly in the mutation you want, you can accomplish the same thing as described in this story. We should wait for the paper at least.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @09:15AM
That way their food consumption will be much lower...