established and effective, and there aren’t any issues with the acceptance of this approach. The same is not true for gene editing, for which a number of questions remain regarding regulatory approval for use in livestock (at least in the US) and consumer acceptance. If you compare these two ap- proaches, you could also argue that traditional breeding is more sustainable than gene editing based on the number of resources required to produce an animal with enhanced ro- bustness to disease via gene editing, compared to using traditional breeding.”
What makes you feel that conventional breeding for robustness is the way ahead? “At this point in time, in the US and some other places around the world, we just don’t know how gene-edited products will be labelled or regulated. We don’t have to worry about this with traditional breeding – we are able to use traditional breeding to produce pigs with enhanced robustness to disease now. “We also think it is more in line with what our current and future consumers are asking for. In the US market, we see a considerable increase in the demand for all-natural and non-GMO products, sustainable agriculture and organic production. It’s not clear yet if gene editing will be regulat- ed as genetically modified in the US. This is a concern for a number of large producers and packers, so they are hesitant to embrace it. For all of these reasons, we believe that tradi- tional breeding is more aligned with the desires of our future consumers.”
Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) is one of the health issues that jumps to mind when speaking of creating robust animals. What have your trials shown so far? “We conducted a large-scale challenge trial with PRRS, using
a highly virulent strain. We wanted to get an understanding of what variation in response to that type of challenge looked like. One of the objectives was to compare the robustness of our animals to animals sired by a competitor line. Re- sults showed that animals sired by the TN Tempo line were significantly more robust to disease challenge. We also ob- served substantial variation in response to challenge within this group.”
Can you give a practical example of a successful devel- opment using the breeding for robustness approach with regard to PRRS? “A major research consortium was formed a number of years ago that included multiple universities and the US Depart- ment of Agriculture. The major finding from that work was the identification of a major region located on chromosome 4. The region was associated with a large proportion of ge- netic variation in performance under PRRS challenge. We re- fer to this region as the ‘WUR SNP’. In March 2018, Topigs Norsvin added PRRS resistance to the breeding goal for our lines. We are using an individual’s genotype at the WUR SNP to facilitate selection for enhanced PRRS resistance. The fa- vourable WUR genotype does not confer complete PRRS re- sistance, as gene editing would, but it’s natural, it’s partial resistance and it’s already in place.”
How about pathogens other than PRRS virus? “That is the ultimate goal. We want to capitalise on naturally occurring variation in response to disease, to improve two diseases specifically, PRRS being one of them, Streptococcus suis being the other. We chose to target these two diseases specifically because of the high economic impact of these diseases, and because they are difficult to control using tradi- tional disease control strategies. Our larger goal, however, is to improve overall robustness to disease challenge.”
▶ PIG PROGRESS | Volume 37, No. 1, 2021 23
Robust animals, by definition, are less affected by a disease challenge and therefore require fewer antibiotics.
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