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Disease-Resistant Pigs Latest Win For Gene Editing Technology (reuters.com)
schwit1 writes with news that using gene editing technology researchers have bred pigs that do not produce a protein necessary for the Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) virus to spread. According to Reuters: "A British animal genetics firm, working with U.S. scientists, has bred the world's first pigs resistant to a common viral disease, using the hot new technology of gene editing. Genus, which supplies pig and bull semen to farmers worldwide, said on Tuesday it had worked with the University of Missouri to develop pigs resistant to Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSv). The condition, also known as blue-ear disease, can be fatal as it affects the animals' immune system and costs farmers hundreds of millions of dollars a year. There is no cure. By using precise gene editing, the team from the University of Missouri was able to breed pigs that do not produce a specific protein necessary for the virus to spread in the animals. Their research was published in journal Nature Biotechnology."
CD163 is a relatively well described protein with very detailed functions, mostly on innate immunity. Fortunately innate immunity have many kinds pathways that interconnect and supplement each other (probably because pathogens are very good at interfering with them) so blocking one pathway at the beginning, like in this case, would have very little effect overall and interleukin 6 and 10 (and the rest of the cascade) will be still produced. For the virus of course this lack of CD163 its lethal, but for the pig it may at much represent slightly increased rates of infections of other pathogens, many of those are no longer important since the pigs are not in the wild anymore.