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. 2021 Jun 4;65(2):362–375. doi: 10.1007/s11427-020-1927-9

Long-term, multidomain analyses to identify the breed and allelic effects in MSTN-edited pigs to overcome lameness and sustainably improve nutritional meat production

Ziyao Fan 1,#, Zhiguo Liu 1,#, Kui Xu 1,#, Tianwen Wu 1, Jinxue Ruan 1, Xinmin Zheng 2, Shideng Bao 3, Yulian Mu 1,✉, Tad Sonstegard 4,✉, Kui Li 1,✉
PMCID: PMC8188954  PMID: 34109474

Abstract

Beef and mutton production has been aided by breeding to integrate allelic diversity for myostatin (MSTN), but a lack of diversity in the MSTN germplasm has limited similar advances in pig farming. Moreover, insurmountable challenges with congenital lameness and a dearth of data about the impacts of feed conversion, reproduction, and meat quality in MSTN-edited pigs have also currently blocked progress. Here, in a largest-to-date evaluation of multiple MSTN-edited pig populations, we demonstrated a practical alternative edit-site-based solution that overcomes the major production obstacle of hindlimb weakness. We also provide long-term and multidomain datasets for multiple breeds that illustrate how MSTN-editing can sustainably increase the yields of breed-specific lean meat and the levels of desirable lipids without deleteriously affecting feed-conversion rates or litter size. Apart from establishing a new benchmark for the data scale and quality of genome-edited animal production, our study specifically illustrates how gene-editing site selection profoundly impacts the phenotypic outcomes in diverse genetic backgrounds.

Supporting Information

The supporting information is available online at 10.1007/s11427-020-1927-9. The supporting materials are published as submitted, without typesetting or editing. The responsibility for scientific accuracy and content remains entirely with the authors.

Keywords: MSTN-edited pigs, multidomain evaluation, genetic background, editing strategy

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Major Transgenic Breeding Project (2008ZX08006-003, 2011ZX08006-003, 20137X08006-003, 2014ZX08006-003, and 2016ZX08006-001), the National Key Basic Research Development Plan (2015CB943100), the Key Projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (30830080 and 31330074), and China Postdoctoral Foundation Project (2018M631648). We thank all researchers involved in these projects for their help and valuable suggestions. We would like to thank Prof. Xijun Yin and his research team at Yanbian University, and Prof. Yaofeng Zhao and his research team at China Agricultural University for valuable advice on this experiment. We also thank Ninghe National Original Pig Farm and the Breeding Swine Quality Supervision and Testing Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People’s Republic of China (Wuhan and Chongqing) for performance testing. Finally, we thank Prof. Defa Li, Prof. Junjun Wang, Dr. Shuai Zhang, and Xiaoming Song of the China Agricultural University for useful discussions related to the design and execution of net energy experiments.

Supporting Information

11427_2020_1927_MOESM1_ESM.pdf (812.2KB, pdf)

Long-term, multidomain analyses to identify the breed and allelic effects in MSTN-edited pigs to overcome lameness and sustainably improve nutritional meat production

Compliance and ethics The author(s) declare that they have no conflict of interest. All animal experiments described in this study were reviewed and approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee of the Institute of Animal Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. All experiments were performed in accordance with the approved guidelines for animal care and management (IAS2012-11).

Footnotes

Contributed equally to this work

Contributor Information

Yulian Mu, Email: mouyulian@caas.cn.

Tad Sonstegard, Email: tad@acceligen.com.

Kui Li, Email: likui@caas.cn.

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