Abstract
Poultry products (meat and eggs) are a major source of animal protein on which the world is increasingly reliant to feed a rapidly growing population. Improved breeds and advances in farm management practices have had a large impact on the poultry industry. For example, using current genetic stock and production practices, broiler chickens can weigh 2 kg in about 34 days. Forty-five years ago it would have typically taken over 60 days. These impressive advances have been made using traditional selective breeding methods and more recently by using genomics. Now, with the availability of precision genome engineering tools there are new opportunities to improve poultry production above and beyond those achievable by traditional means. One major opportunity is disease resilience, particularly for viral diseases such as avian influenza that has devastating impacts on the poultry industry. Resilience to specific diseases can be a notoriously difficult trait to select for using traditional breeding and the latest technologies that precisely edit the genome have created new ways to address this challenge.
Highlights
Precision genome engineering (PGE) tools for rapid and directed change of poultry genomes have created a new approach for the precision breeding of poultry for food production
The new era that is ushered in by these new PGE tools means that desirable single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), or the gene variants associated with them, can be introduced into a line of genetics in a single step rather than taking several reproductive rounds including screening
If these SNPs or variants already exist within the species and could be introduced with a longer time frame by conventional breeding, we foresee reduced complexity for regulatory approval of these technologies and their outcomes when compared to more traditional genetic engineering approaches
Summary
The opinions expressed and arguments employed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the OECD or of the governments of its Member countries. Australian Animal Health Laboratory, CSIRO Health & Biosecurity 5 Portarlington Road, Geelong, Victoria 3220, Australia
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