Genome editing for disease resistance in pigs and chickens

For thousands of years, humans have used selective breeding to improve desirable traits in both livestock and companion animals. In livestock, targeted breeding has been common practice since the British Agricultural Revolution of the 18th century, with measurable production traits such as feed conversion in cattle or wool production in sheep actively selected for. In the late 20th century, genomic selection was added to the livestock breeding tool box; by reading specific locations in the genome and assigning them to measurable production traits, faster improvement in livestock production efficiency has been achieved. One of the inherently difficult production traits to measure is resistance to a specific disease, as animals with less severe symptoms or pathology may simply have been exposed to less pathogen. Experimental infections guaranteeing equal pathogen exposures are expensive and require large numbers of animals for genetic association studies, making them ethically questionable. Genome editing offers new opportunities to livestock breeding for disease resistance, allowing the direct translation of laboratory research into disease-resistant or resilient animals.