First Gene-Edited Dogs with enhanced muscles Reported in China

There's a gene editing technique CRISPR that I have been following for awhile and it's surprisingly simple and efficient. This can truly change everything with designer pets and humans. We can edit genes and help with certain diseases.

The dogs have “more muscles and are expected to have stronger running ability, which is good for hunting, police (military) applications,” Liangxue Lai, a researcher with the Key Laboratory of Regenerative Biology at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, said in an e-mail.

Lai and 28 colleagues reported their results last week in the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology, saying they intend to create dogs with other DNA mutations, including ones that mimic human diseases such as Parkinson’s and muscular dystrophy. “The goal of the research is to explore an approach to the generation of new disease dog models for biomedical research,” says Lai. “Dogs are very close to humans in terms of metabolic, physiological, and anatomical characteristics.”

Lai said his group had no plans breed to breed the extra-muscular beagles as pets. Other teams, however, could move quickly to commercialize gene-altered dogs, potentially editing their DNA to change their size, enhance their intelligence, or correct genetic illnesses. A different Chinese Institute, BGI, said in September it had begun selling miniature pigs, created via gene editing, for $1,600 each as novelty pets.

Genome editing refers to newly developed techniques that let scientists easily disable genes or rearrange their DNA letters. The method used to change the beagles, known as CRISPR-Cas9, is particularly inexpensive and precise.

www.technologyreview.com...

This could extend lifespans and do so much more. We're just at the beginning of this with CRISPR and like I said, it's efficient and simple. Here's more about CRISPR.

Over the last decade, as DNA-sequencing technology has grown ever faster and cheaper, our understanding of the human genome has increased accordingly. Yet scientists have until recently remained largely ham-fisted when they’ve tried to directly modify genes in a living cell. Take sickle-cell anemia, for example. A debilitating and often deadly disease, it is caused by a mutation in just one of a patient’s three billion DNA base pairs. Even though this genetic error is simple and well studied, researchers are helpless to correct it and halt its devastating effects.

Now there is hope in the form of new genome-engineering tools, particularly one called CRISPR. This technology could allow researchers to perform microsurgery on genes, precisely and easily changing a DNA sequence at exact locations on a chromosome. Along with a technique called TALENs, invented several years ago, and a slightly older predecessor based on molecules called zinc finger nucleases, CRISPR could make gene therapies more broadly applicable, providing remedies for simple genetic disorders like sickle-cell anemia and eventually even leading to cures for more complex diseases involving multiple genes. Most conventional gene therapies crudely place new genetic material at a random location in the cell and can only add a gene. In contrast, CRISPR and the other new tools also give scientists a precise way to delete and edit specific bits of DNA—even by changing a single base pair. This means they can rewrite the human genome at will.

www.technologyreview.com...

CRISPR was used by Chinese Scientist to modify human embryos.:

Some say that gene editing in embryos could have a bright future because it could eradicate devastating genetic diseases before a baby is born. Others say that such work crosses an ethical line: researchers warned in Nature2 in March that because the genetic changes to embryos, known as germline modification, are heritable, they could have an unpredictable effect on future generations. Researchers have also expressed concerns that any gene-editing research on human embryos could be a slippery slope towards unsafe or unethical uses of the technique.

The technique used by Huang’s team involves injecting embryos with the enzyme complex CRISPR/Cas9, which binds and splices DNA at specific locations. The complex can be programmed to target a problematic gene, which is then replaced or repaired by another molecule introduced at the same time. The system is well studied in human adult cells and in animal embryos. But there had been no published reports of its use in human embryos.

www.nature.com...

This could end up as Dr. Frankenstein on steroids. I do think a paradigm shift may be coming. There's a few life changing technologies on the horizon that are truly amazing. Machine intelligence, gene editing, the hunt for parallel universes by LHC, Kepler and looking at structures that could be alien, 3D Printing, lab grown meats, nanotechnology, quantum computing, VR and AR and more.

I'm not saying we're close to a singularity but we're on the cusp of technologies and breakthroughs about the nature of reality that can change things faster than the internet changed things. That's if the Syria and ME situation isn't a flash point that we will spread into something that looks like WW3.





Underdog anyone??

a reply to: neoholographic

Yay,

New Master Race Super Soldiers!

Great.

As expected though.

This can truly change everything with designer pets and humans. We can edit genes and help with certain diseases.

We should help with certain diseases.

WE WILL change everything with designer pets and humans, as well as making both dangerous. (even more so)

Because we are not smart enough not to.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

That is were I see humans taking this.
Sorry, I have no faith in us, as far as technology goes.

That's just creepy to me.

It's bad enough, that when I go to my friend's house, their little #zu grabs hold of my leg and humps me to the point I wonder if the damn thing is gonna stroke out. But now with this story out, my friends pet could literatly break my leg. LOL!!!!

a reply to: neoholographic
China leading the way in gene splicing.

The Country that gives us lead in kids toys and formaldehyde in dog treats.

What could possibly go wrong?

a reply to: neoholographic

Aren't you at all weary about this biotechnology?

What unintended consequences could playing with genetics have in the future generations?

I think it's important to remain cautious and allow for adequate research to be done before we all jump on the bandwagon and start advocating for gene-splicing medicines and blind adoration for something so new that has so little data for it

Helping to fight diseases is a credible and very noble thing to do. As long as it was used for this purpose alone, I would absolutely support this endeavour.

But we all know where this will eventually lead and it isn't going to end pretty. Man has been playing with nature for a very long time, but over these past few years, theory has proved possible and nobody is going to stop it.

It's the next race I guess. We can call it the 'Who can OutGene the Gene' race. The Chinese have made some strides, now wait for the U.S to introduce their work.

a reply to: Cobaltic1978

Jeez I thought this was creepy

www.youtube.com...

But to mess with nature, that is just wrong.

They'll have to take care of the patent issues:

www.technologyreview.com...

But because genes are removed or replaced, it's still a genetically modified organisms (GMO).

www.technologyreview.com...

a reply to: neoholographic

That is disgusting.

To me this has to be animal cruelty. That dog looks horrible, it looks like it is going to have a very short life span as with most so called successes. Why do we do this? With all the crazy stuff that's happening in the world, with all the crap and things that we need to be dealing with what is the point to this?

Another pointless "experiment" on an innocent animal being changed just because humanity thinks it has the right to do so.

The ideas behind this are really nothing new and something that humanity has been doing for thousands of years.

You don't think that dogs, cats, sheep, pigs, horses, cattle, chickens, and more domesticated themselves, do you?

Only instead of breeding for specific traits over generations, it's being done in one through technology.


Even animals with extra muscle have been bred through selective breeding for quite awhile. Just take the Belgian Blue, for example:



The breed originates to Belgium in the early 1800s and is from crossbreeding and linebreeding.

Can it go too far? Certainly. But can it benefit humanity in the long run? Certainly.

What surprises me is that no one has connected the canines with extra muscle to being a food source. China does have a provincial festival to eating dog meat, after all.

a reply to: cmdrkeenkid

Hm.m.m.m.m. This paints a clear picture to me what the uses would be for in China.

a reply to: cmdrkeenkid

food will be the reason I think also.Good point man.
I also think making muscles bigger will cause the dog/animal no end of bone problems....muscles become bigger.....bones become denser by exercize,not genetic manipulation.Lots of dislocations and pain.

a reply to: hiddenNZ

As far as I know, at least where the Belgian Blue is concerned, the extra muscle (called "double-muscling" in trade) doesn't pose any bone issues, despite having much more muscle mass on the same skeletal structure of a normal cow. The double-muscling comes from a gene that inhibits the production of myostatin, which regulates muscle development and essentially tells them when to stop growing.

The main issue comes in birthing calves. They almost always need to be born via cesarean. In fact, I didn't realize it until posting now, but the image I posted is actually of a dam post cesarean.

Another interesting fact: "Double muscle syndrome" is also apparent in some people. In 2004 it also occurred naturally in a child in Germany. I believe it has also been found in some other children in the last decade.