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Science

Chinese Scientists Create Genetically Modified Low-Fat Pigs (npr.org) 181

Posted by BeauHD from the low-calorie dept.
Chinese scientists have created low-fat pigs using new genetic engineering techniques. "In a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists report that they have created 12 healthy pigs with about 24 percent less body fat than normal pigs," reports NPR. From the report: The scientists created low-fat pigs in the hopes of providing pig farmers with animals that would be less expensive to raise and would suffer less in cold weather. The animals have less body fat because they have a gene that allows them to regulate their body temperatures better by burning fat. That could save farmers millions of dollars in heating and feeding costs, as well as prevent millions of piglets from suffering and dying in cold weather. The Chinese scientists created the animals using a new gene-editing technique known as CRISPR-Cas9. It enables scientists to make changes in DNA much more easily and precisely than ever before. Pigs lack a gene, called UPC1, which most other mammals have. The gene helps animals regulate their body temperatures in cold temperatures. The scientists edited a mouse version of the gene into pig cells. They then used those cells to create more than 2,553 cloned pig embryos. Next, scientists implanted the genetically modified cloned pig embryos into 13 female pigs. Three of the female surrogate mother pigs became pregnant, producing 12 male piglets, the researchers report.
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Chinese Scientists Create Genetically Modified Low-Fat Pigs More

Chinese Scientists Create Genetically Modified Low-Fat Pigs

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  • The headline I see (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23, 2017 @05:25PM (#55420413)
    Chinese Scientists Create Less Tasty Pigs

    • Re:The headline I see (Score:5, Funny)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Monday October 23, 2017 @05:40PM (#55420493)

      Yeah, I know it's not a popular stand to take but - some science is just wrong and shouldn't be done.

      • That's the first thing I thought about when I read this, less flavor in pork.

        We've already killed beef off with flavor, having less and less intramuscular fat.

        You look at a picture of a Prime cut of beef from the 50's even to the late 60's compared to today's "prime" cuts, and you see a HUGE difference in fat content.

        That fat is flavor.

        • A flavoir that makes me vomit.
          Especially with beef.

          I prefere the meet cooked on fire or in a pan, so that the fat melts away, the remains I cut away.

    • "Chinese Scientists Create Less Tasty Pigs"

      The crossbred it with the 'long pig' variant.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megol ( 3135005 )

      Yep. They essentially undid what people worked hard for (well the pigs did the most work) with selective breeding. Hundreds or even thousands of years of work undone in a few.
      It's impressive but as pigs are mainly bred for their tasty meat I can but wonder why they did it.

  • Chinese Scientists Create Genetically Modified Low-Fat Pigs

    But what are they for?

    • Bacon! It's good for you!

      • Low fat bacon? No thanks!! Give American full fat bacon.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      This technology could lead to a treatment for human obesity. Now I have your attention slashdot!?

      Newborn humans use this gene/protein to generate heat from fat.
      CRISPR/Cas9 could potentially be used to restore this ability to obese adults, allowing them to burn more fat keeping warm without shivering. (not just new embryos)

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mark-t ( 151149 )

        CRISPR/Cas9 could potentially be used to restore this ability to obese adults...

        Uh... adults? How is that supposed to work, exactly? I thought gene editing in mammals could only be done on embryos.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by quenda ( 644621 )

          I thought gene editing in mammals could only be done on embryos.

          Welcome to the future. It is new, and so far, human trials have only been done "in vitro", with cells taken from body, treated, and replaced. And then only on the terminally ill (afaik).
          But in theory, something like CRISPR could one day be injected and edit your cells by the billion. Finding a delivery mechanism that gets the gene editing tool to a large number of you fat cells (mitochondria in this case) safely, makes it a much greater challenge than editing an embryo.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tsa ( 15680 )

            That would be so cool. Eliminating heriditary breast cancer just by vaccinating.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by quenda ( 644621 )

              That would be so cool. Eliminating heriditary breast cancer just by vaccinating.

              If you can identify the problem gene, e.g. BRCA1, then potentially yes, you can alter the germline.
                But as it is dominant, it would be so much easier to select an egg or embryo without the gene.

          • Viruses have been doing this for eons
            There has been work done on using viruses as a vector for gene editing post-embryo

      • Humans obviously already have that gene, which is clearly written in the summary.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by quenda ( 644621 )

          Humans obviously already have that gene, which is clearly written in the summary.

          Yes, its not so simple in humans as in pigs. The gene/protein is active in newborns, not but adults.

    • Well,
      I could cut&paste you the summary.
      But you could simply scroll up ...

  • Baconless pig is for millenials.

    • Oh come on whats wrong with leaner bacon? Now some fat is good but unless your rendering it for pork fat what wrong with leaner bacon? more bacon for your buck and less fat in the pan.

      • Oh come on whats wrong with leaner bacon?

        Less flavor.

        Fat in meat == flavor.

        That's why today's beef is MUCH less flavorful than beef a few decades back. We've bred out the intramuscular fat where the flavor is. I remember eating beef as a kid and it had a MUCH better flavor than it does now.

        Pork too is already leaner than it used to be....reducing it more makes it less flavorful.

      • What are you actually doing with bacon?
        You put iti into a pan and fry it ... so more fat is better.
        You take it out of the pan when the meet and remaining fat is crisp.

        • "What are you actually doing with bacon?"
          Im having sex with it. How do you handle bacon.
          "You put it into a pan and fry it ... so more fat is better."
          Um... buy really cheap bacon its mostly fat and when you crisp fry it almost disappears. With leaner bacon you have more left when your done but less fat in the pan.
          Now when I talked about rendering it down i mean crisp fry the shit outta it and drain the clarified grease into a jar and stick it in the fridge. Then you use that to fry other stuff and it ad

          • Well, a part of the fat will "melt" and be in the pan, the rest remains and becomes crisp.

            But your talk about "cheap bacon" scared me ... perhaps you have really strange fat or strange beacon :D

  • I want one of the following predicted genetic modifications for pigs: 1. Create bacon that has omega-3 fatty acids so that it's actually good for you. 2. Modify the pigs to chew their cud so that the meat will be kosher.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      I'd settle for the Chinese scientists fixing their pigs so that they weren't generating new flu strains to export to the rest of the world. Pigs and humans are close physiologically, close enough where flu viruses jump. One of the big flu generating areas is southern China where farmers apparently get a bit to comfy with their livestock.

  • Fat is an insulator, what polar bears and arctic seals have.

    Don't they mean suffer in HOT weather?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AvitarX ( 172628 )

      Pigs can't burn fat for warmth (according to the summary).

      Because of this the only defense against cold pigs have is accumulating more fat, and small/young ones die.

      This modification means they require less fat to regulate body temperature, and burn more when it's cold (which is why they are leaner).

    • fta -"..The animals have less body fat because they have a gene that allows them to regulate their body temperatures better by burning fat. "

    • It is all in the summary, facepalm.
      Ordinary pigs lack a gene to regulate body temperature properly.
      Hence they even freeze with fat in cold weather.
      With the additional gene they can burn their fat, and don't freeze.

  • Stuffed pig? (Score:4, Funny)

    by MiniMike ( 234881 ) on Monday October 23, 2017 @05:31PM (#55420455)

    They then used those cells to create more than 2,553 cloned pig embryos. Next, scientists implanted the genetically modified cloned pig embryos into 13 female pigs.

    That's a lot (196) of embryos per pig. The female pigs would have exploded if the embryos had all been viable.

    At least the piglets look cute.

    The animals were slaughtered when they were six months old so scientists could analyze their bodies.

    Oh damn, that was harsh.

    Let the bacon jokes begin...

    • Let the bacon jokes begin...

      Without all that bacon grease what will those hillbillies use to cook their... well, everything?

      My sister married one of those hillbillies, he calls himself that. My sister complains about the abundance of greasy foods since they moved out to new jobs where the mountains have a blue hue to them.

    • Also this https://xkcd.com/1823/ [xkcd.com]

    • I used to go hunting a lot. Feral pigs (or boars) are super aggressive and destroy the area they are in. You need a reasonably large caliber rifle to kill them, they breed like crazy and are full of worms so you can't eat them. They will attack humans, are smarter than a dog and boars [wikipedia.org] can grow pretty big - you would not want to mess with one unless you had a weapon.

      *Anything* that can potentially get into the wild, like a genetically engineered pig that can survive cold, is a really, really bad idea. Exp

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        Odd. Most places I've lived wild pigs have been edible. I'm not saying they aren't dangerous, just that they are edible and reputed to have excellent taste.

        P.S.: They also aren't very fat.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by MrKaos ( 858439 )

          It might be just where I was, however they turned me off pork for a while.

          • Yea, it just takes one time where the meat isn't cooked hot enough and your getting something pulled out of your ass at the doctors. Or worst, like my cousin, who had to have surgery.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by MrKaos ( 858439 )

              Exactly, it just isn't worth the hassle of dealing with it. Surgery would be horrible - must have been a massive worm.

      • Wild pigs already have that gene.
        Humans first breeded it away, to have fatter pigs. Now gene edit it back in, to save heating costs for mass production.
        I happily eat the old pig races we still have in germany :)

      • Expect at least one of these pigs to escape and breed in the wild.

        Well since they were all slaughtered and dissected I guess that's one less prophecy of yours that will come true, eh Nostradamus?

  • Chinese find a way (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Chinese find a way to leave you feeling even hungrier after eating Chinese food. News at 11:00.

  • Suffering (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by PoopJuggler ( 688445 )

    prevent millions of piglets from suffering and dying in cold weather

    Yeah, suffering in a factory farm and dying at the hands of hungry Chinese at 1 year old is so much better.

  • Find another gene (Score:3)

    by dasgoober ( 2882045 ) on Monday October 23, 2017 @06:03PM (#55420585)

    A gene that gives the lower-fat pigs more flavor, otherwise, I don't see how this is an improvement over white-meat chicken.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The idea isn't to make low fat pigs, it's to make low fat humans. If a similar technique can be used on people then they will be much less prone to obesity.

      • Mans already have that gene ...
        But perhaps we find anither one.

        Obesity is mostly caused by wrong gut bacteria ... people can digest fibres, which ordinary people can't.
        Inassume they get infected via eating the wrong parts of cows ... or gut bacteria somehow get into sausages.

  • Israeli Scientists Create Genetically Modified Kosher Pigs

  • Zombie pig apocalypse!!!1!
  • Low Fat Pigs?

    OK, I am going to invent dehydrated water. Top that Chinese scientists.

  • Consumer Demand (Score:4, Informative)

    by jblues ( 1703158 ) on Monday October 23, 2017 @07:34PM (#55420941)
    Something I noticed - pork in my birth country, Australia, is already low fat, due to selective breeding. Here in Asia it is very fatty - people seem to prefer that.
    • I can't quote you which publication was that now (Bloomberg businessweek?), but it there was a article a few years ago about the result of selective breeding of cows, both the physical shape of the cow and fat content of the beef in the commercial range of western world is very different from now. But whatever fat content lowered in the beef in the 2010s, people compensate by slathering butter, BBQ sauce and seasoning imaginable to make it more palatable. Thus there are no obvious lowering of calorie count

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jblues ( 1703158 )

        Latest research seems to indicate that the saturated fat in animal products, especially naturally raised and grass- as opposed to grain-fed, is quite healthy. Ancel Keys (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancel_Keys) was responsible for promoting a high-fiber, mostly vegetable and whole grain diet. Folks are saying now that saturated fat from whole sources were - unnecessarily demonised due to a failure to do non-linear covariate regression analysis.

        A reasonably low-fat diet consisting of whole and low GI food

        • Perhaps the declining sperm-count in western men is because of the focus over the last 50 years on a low-fat diet.
          That is certainly annoption.
          However I assume your drinking water simply contains to much estrogen as it is not as good treated as in europe e.g.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Gryle ( 933382 )
      I can't speak for Australia, but I know pig breeders in the US made a concerted effort to breed leaner pigs as a result of the low-fact craze.

    • Something I noticed - pork in my birth country, Australia, is already low fat, due to selective breeding.

      Pork in your birth country is low fat due to selective cutting. You go buy "bacon" in the shops you will end up with a large cut of the loin and middle. You go buy bacon elsewhere you'll end up with the bits that we cut off :-)

  • They bought a bigger exercise pen for the pigs.

  • Less fat?!?!? These so-called scientists need to wake up. We've been brainwashed for over 30 years to avoid fat. How well has that worked? We're fatter than ever. Meanwhile, over 30 years ago a quiet voice in the void said we should avoid carbohydrates and eat much more fat. More than 30 million people listened to Dr. Atkins and those scientists who followed him and they are healthier than ever. Scientists have confirmed the less carbs / more fat plan but government and commercial interests are still pushin

    • Atkinson is not a high fat advocator.
      He is a high proteine advocator.

      Replacing carbs with fat makes not much sense, unless you are a maori or inuit.

      Reducing carbs makes sense, especially high processed ones.

      There is nothing wrong with a boal of good asian rice or a chunk of good black german bread made from ray.

      The combination of fat and carbs in the same meal is the problem, especially if it is high processed carbs and high saturrated fats.

      Citing Atkinson and obviously never having read a book about him is

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by swell ( 195815 )

        I don't know who this Atkinson is that you speak of.

        Dr. Atkins made it crystal clear that fat is essential. Additionally he pointed out that too much protein will be converted by the body into carbohydrate. Eat only normal amounts.

        If you are aware of any of the popular diets since Atkins, you know that they tend to agree. I've done Atkins for 30 years, my brother does Paleo which is similar. Here are some others: New Diet Revolution; Carbohydrate Addicts Diet; the Zone; Sugar Busters!; Protein Power, Medite

        • Yes,
          and all those diets emphasize on proteins, not on fat.

          If you would replace the typical carb intake a person with a "average diet" has with fat, you probably would not live long. And it would be super impractical. Suppose one eats about 300g carbs per day. Perhaps even 500g, you hardly will replace that with fat. (Carbs and fat have basically the same weight per amount of calories)

          Mediterranean is usually a 1/3rd of each diet. They eat lots of carbs. But also lots of vegetables and low fat, just enough o

  • Pigs.. low-fat... CRISPR-Cas9...

    Are they making low-fat, crisper bacon?

  • Less fat stored from a single gene change? More fat burned when it's cold?

    Sign me up and if anyone needs me I'll be in the outdoor swimming pool.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Medieval Northern Europeans had to deal with plenty of cold pigs, so they built two story houses and put the pigs on the first floor. Both pigs and people stayed nice and warm.
  • "Without the grease all you can taste is the hog anus"

    ~ Homer Simpson

  • Right? Pigs that go wild are supposedly destroying land and pushing out native wildlife all over the US. Do we need to make them even more resilient (to weather)?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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