The Application of CRISPR/Cas9 Technology for Farm Animals: A Review

Abstract

Livestock animal are important for agriculture economy and biomedical research. They are sources of Milk, meat, carcass, organic manure and other products. The development of genome editing technologies, especially CRISPR-Cas have revolutionized the generation of gene edited farm animals. In this review, we briefly introduce the CRISPR-Cas9 technology and highlight its application on livestock such as human disease modeling, disease resistant animal, and generation of hornless cattle, animal welfare and other agricultural and biomedical related traits which enhance the livestock production in order to meet the increasing demand of food worldwide. The ability to transfer sperm-producing stem cells or spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) from a donor animal into the testes of a recipient male could have multiple applications. Production of BLG free milk in cattle provides a promising way to those who have allergy to cow milk. The knockdown of myostatin gene in different species like Sheep, Goat, Cattle and pig is very helpful in the economy of meat industry. Besides the several benefits of CRISPR-Cas9 technology, the risk factors and ethics issues related to this technology should be reconsidered before they enter into CRISPR era.