2023-10-11 14:20:53
The bird flu It is widespread throughout Asia, Europe, Africa and America (especially South America), which poses a threat to wild bird species, an economic cost for farmers and a risk to human health. In fact, scientists believe that it could jump back to people – some specific deaths have already been reported – and become a new pandemic.
Vaccination of poultry against this flu, caused by a influenza virus type Ais still not reliable due to the rapid antigenic drift of field viruses, in addition to being controversial due to its political and economic implications.
In this context, gene editing CRISPR/Cas9 can be used to create chickens partially resistant to bird flu infection, according to a “proof-of-concept” study published this week in the journal Nature Communications by researchers from the United Kingdom.
CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing can be used to create chickens partially resistant to bird flu infection, according to a new ‘proof of concept’ study
The authors present a potential strategy to help mitigate the spread of avian influenza in poultry from wild birds. The key is to edit or genetically modify some genes associated with key proteins in the infection.
In chickens, the virus’s life cycle depends on a host protein, called ANP32A. With the potential goal of creating birds resistant to the pathogen, the researcher Mike McGrew from the Roslin Institute of the University of Edinburgh, together with other scientists, edited the gen ANP32A (which encodes that protein) in germ cells of chickens (precursors of reproductive cells).
Nine out of ten chickens were not infected
Thus they discovered that fully grown chickens were resistant to a physiological dose of exposure to the virus of avian flu from other infected birds, and showed a greater recovery capacity. After these typical exposure levels, nine out of ten gene-edited chickens were not infected (although they were infected at doses a thousand times higher).
Furthermore, these birds showed no adverse effects on health or egg-laying productivity when subjected to follow-up for more than two years.
The birds with the genetic editing had no adverse effects on their health and laid eggs like the others
In their study, the authors note that, “unexpectedly, the virus also replicated in chicken embryos edited to delete the ANP32A gene, and instead recruited alternative members of the ANP32 protein family: specifically, ANP32B y ANP32EAdditional genome editing to remove these two associated genes served to eliminate all viral growth in the chicken cells.
Therefore, the authors indicate that additional editing and deletion of the ANP32B and ANP32E genes in birds could prevent virus replication.
Need for more studies
The results, therefore, suggest gene editing as a possible way to create chickens resistant to avian flu infection. However, the authors caution that more studies are needed to ensure that the animals’ health is not affected and that multiple edits to the ANP32 gene family may be necessary to eliminate the possibility of viral evolution.
Rights: Creative Commons.
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