Abstract
Genetically engineered (GE) livestock were first reported in 1985, and yet only a single GE food animal, the fast-growing AquAdvantage salmon, has been commercialized. There are myriad interconnected reasons for the slow progress in this once-promising field, including technical issues, the structure of livestock industries, lack of public research funding and investment, regulatory obstacles, and concern about public opinion. This review focuses on GE livestock that have been produced and documents the difficulties that researchers and developers have encountered en route. Additionally, the costs associated with delayed commercialization of GE livestock were modeled using three case studies: GE mastitis-resistant dairy cattle, genome-edited porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus-resistant pigs, and the AquAdvantage salmon. Delays of 5 or 10 years in the commercialization of GE livestock beyond the normative 10-year GE product evaluation period were associated with billions of dollars in opportunity costs and reduced global food security.
Highlights
Engineered (GE) crops have been commercialized for more than 22 years, and in 2018 alone they were grown on 191.7 million hectares by 17 million farmers in 26 countries
Reviews detailed some of the technical issues associated with the production of Genetically engineered (GE) livestock, including low rates of transgene integration, mosaicism, unpredictable expression patterns due to the random locations of introgressions, and the expense associated with the production of large transgenic food animals
Diffusion starting at 2020, implying a delay of 5 years, would have led to a net present value (NPV) of costs associated with S. aureus mastitis in the United States and European Union jointly of $8.22 and $6.02 billion under the 50% and 100% diffusion scenarios, respectively
Summary
Engineered (GE) crops have been commercialized for more than 22 years, and in 2018 alone they were grown on 191.7 million hectares by 17 million farmers in 26 countries. Genome editing offers an efficient approach to introduce useful genetic variation into livestock breeding programs through targeted inactivation of gene function and/or through allele introgression without the undesired linkage drag. More than 90% of global poultry breeding stock is managed by three companies selling to a worldwide market (93) These species have high reproductive rates and relatively short generation intervals, and this allows incremental improvements in efficiency to be multiplied across many animals. This directly influences the level of investment that can likely be directed toward developing genetically improved founders in the breeding nucleus. It is difficult to obtain a return on investment from the high costs associated with developing GE founder animals for these less vertically integrated, low-margin industries
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