Blog

These posts should be at least 100 words and be substantive in nature. While pleasantries such as “I agree” or “great job” are nice, they will not count as one of your required posts. No references are required.

Post 1

Jacob Luttrell

Transgenic Animals

A transgenic animal is an animal that has had a gene from another species inserted into its genome. (Mader & Windelspecht, 2021) Many animals in livestock production have been modified in one way or another for quite a few years. “There are many potential applications of transgenic methodology to develop new and improved strains of livestock. Practical applications of transgenics in livestock production include enhanced prolificacy and reproductive performance, increased feed utilization and growth rate, improved carcass composition, improved milk production and/or composition (Figure 1), modification of hair or fiber, and increased disease resistance. The development of transgenic farm animals will allow more flexibility indirect genetic manipulation of livestock. Gene transfer is a relatively rapid way of altering the genome of domestic livestock. The use of these tools will have a great impact on improving the efficiency of livestock production and animal agriculture in a timely and more cost-effective manner. With ever-increasing world population and changing climate conditions, such effective means of increasing food production are needed.”  (Wheeler, 2013) This will help improve human health, enhance nutrition, help protect the environment, increase animal welfare, and decrease livestock disease. It can improve sexual reproduction and hair and fiber growth. “In using any new technology, there are problems that occur and there are risks to be considered. From the technical side, these problems can be: (1) unregulated expression of genes resulting in over-or underproduction of gene products; (2) too high a copy number resulting in overexpression of products; (3) possible side effects, e.g., GH transgenic swine had arthritis, altered skeletal growth, cardiomegaly, dermatitis, gastric ulcers, and renal disease; (4) insertional mutations (inserting a fragment of DNA into an important gene) that result in some essential biological processes being altered; (5) mosaicism (only a portion of the cells incorporate the gene being transferred) in the founders, which results in the transmission of the transgene to only some of the offspring; and (6) transgene integration on the ‘Y’ chromosome, which results in only males carrying the transgene. Many, if not all, of these problems, are related to the transgene itself, integration site, copy number, and transgene expression. These issues can be addressed, at least in part, through construct design and testing. From the animal side, the welfare, biology, and health of the resulting transgenic animal must be of paramount concern” (Wheeler, 2013)

References

• Mader, S. S., & Windelspecht, M. (2021). Essentials of Biology 6th Edition. New York: McGraw Hill Education.
• Wheeler, M. B. (2013). Transgenic Animals in Agriculture. Retrieved from The Nature Education Knowledge Project.: https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/transgenic-animals-in-agriculture-105646080/

Post 2

Wendy Daniels-Smith

Transgenic Animals

What is a Transgenic Animal?

A transgenic animal are animals that have been alter with the transfer of genes from aother animal. Reachers, most commonly use mice for the studies

What method was used to inject the foreign DNA?

The method that is used to inject foreign DNA is called transfection. Transfection is a process of deliberate introduction of the nucleic acid to eukaryotic cells.

For what purpose was this animal “created”?

They were created as labortory tools in hopes to understand the onset and progress of cancers. Mice provide a model that mimics human body closer then ant other animal.

Has it been successful?

It has been successful in helping with studies of human diseases. Some examples that reseachers are using transgenic animals are for the study of heart disease, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. They are investigating transgenic pigs for organ transplants.

Is it currently being used to help humans?

Transgenic animals are being used for reacher in medical testing and in pharmaceutical companies.

Also consider such aspects as animal suffering and animal rights. What if the animal contains human genes and ended up being cosumed for food?

Reseacher are doing what they can to not make the animals suffer and that they are being treated right. It is concerning to think of the possiblities of a transgenic animal that has human genes it to be consumed as food. Anything is possible now a days. I can only hope that it never happens.

Will this affected the overall genome if this creature in the wild?

There are different ways to look t this question. If you look at it from a scientific view it can be a good thing with disease that are carried by animals because it could eradicate the disease. on the other hand you would have a mutant animal on the lose.