The future of pork may be the super-muscled 'Super Pigs.'
Io9 reports that a group of Chinese and South Korean researchers have just created super-sized pigs simply by changing a single gene. The editing produces a higher muscle mass in the pigs, which would result in more meat to yield and less fatty pork.
The team is led by molecular biologist Jin-Soo Kim of Seoul National University. Kim says that their work aims to speed up a process that could still occur naturally. "We could do this through breeding," Kim said, "but then it would take decades."
Kim may be referring to the hulking Belgian Blue cows, which are a result of several decades of crossbreeding different types of cattle.
Belgian blue cow!! FUUUUUCK!! #massive #beast #genetic #muscle #gains #natural #cow #blue #belgian
A photo posted by Karl Rowlett (@rowlo1505) on Dec 3, 2014 at 11:14am PST
The team is hoping that the double-muscled pigs will be the first genetically engineered animals that will be available for human consumption, since the porkers are only a result of a simple gene-editing.
Throughout the world, genetically engineered animals are not available as food due to possible health risks. However, the researchers point out that the procedure used on the pigs only disables one gene and is not a complex procedure.
The double-muscled pigs were created by introducing a mutation in the myostatin gene or MSTN, which prevents muscles from growing beyond normal. When MSTN is disrupted, the result is an increased growth in muscles.
The team uses a gene-editing technology called TALEN, which manipulates pig fetal cells. Once the cells are completely edited, they are then transferred to egg cells. So far, Kim and his colleagues have yielded 32 cloned piglets.
The team is planning to sell pig sperm to farmers to help inseminate regular pigs. The idea is to yield at least one healthy piglet with the disrupted MSTN gene.
Kim already has an eye out for the first place to distribute the pig sperm. "I think China will go first," the biologist said.
