Gene Edited Calf Resistant to BVD

[Dusty Britches]

Very interesting article on how U of Nebraska, USDA, and U of Kentucky developed a gene edited calf that is resistant to BVD.
BEEF Magazine
Bovine viral diarrhea virus can be disastrous to pregnant cows because it can infect developing calves, causing spontaneous abortions and low birth rates.
May 09, 2023

Scientists have collaborated to produce the first gene-edited calf with resistance to bovine viral diarrhea virus, a virus that costs the U.S. cattle sector billions of dollars annually.

The recent study published in PNAS Nexus results from a collaboration between the USDA's Agricultural Research Service, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the University of Kentucky and industry partners, Acceligen and Recombinetics, Inc.

BVDV is one of the most significant viruses affecting the health and well-being of cattle worldwide, and researchers have been studying it since the 1940s when it was first recognized. This virus does not affect humans but is highly contagious among cattle and can cause severe respiratory and intestinal diseases.

BVDV can be disastrous to pregnant cows because it can infect developing calves, causing spontaneous abortions and low birth rates. Some infected calves survive to birth and remain infected for life, shedding massive amounts of virus to other cattle. Despite more than 50 years of vaccine availability, controlling BVDV disease remains a problem since vaccines are not always effective in stopping transmission.

However, over the past 20 years, the scientific community discovered the main cellular receptor (CD46) and the area where the virus binds to that receptor, causing infection in cows. Scientists modified the virus binding site in this recent study to block infection.

Aspen Workman, lead author and researcher at ARS' U.S. Meat Animal Research Center in Clay Center, Nebraska, said, "Our objective was to use gene-editing technology to slightly alter CD46 so it wouldn't bind the virus yet would retain all its normal bovine functions."

The scientists first tested this idea in cell culture. After seeing promising outcomes in the laboratory, Acceligen edited cattle skin cells to develop embryos carrying the altered gene. These embryos were transplanted into surrogate cows to test whether this approach might also reduce virus infection in live animals.

It worked, and the first CD46 gene-edited calf, named Ginger, was born healthy on July 19, 2021. The calf was observed for several months and then later challenged with the virus to determine if she could become infected. She was housed for a week with a BVDV-infected dairy calf that was born shedding virus. Ginger's cells displayed significantly reduced susceptibility to BVDV, which resulted in no observable adverse health effects.

The scientists will continue to closely observe Ginger's health and ability to produce and raise her own calves.

 

[Ky hills]

I know it looks beneficial to edit some genes for various reasons, but it's not something I'm in favor of doing. Some things are better left undone as the eventual results and progression to other areas can be a whole nother mess.

 

[wbvs58]

I really can't see the point of it. BVD can be controlled pretty easily and cheaply through other means such as vaccination and biosecurity. Traders would be most at risk but they have no control on how the cattle they buy in were produced. I guess gene editing means they will produce a line of cattle resistant to BVD. There are two areas where BVD affects cattle, the first in breeding animals especially in unvaccinated 1st calf heifers and naieve older cows where the sudden introduction of a PI can result in loss of pregnancies and ill thrifty calves. The 2nd in intensive feeding situations where a PI can pass on a transient infection to healthy cattle lowering their immunity for a while to respiratory diseases. Maybe feedlots could offer a premium on cattle from these gene edited lines.
The problem getting people to comply with the existing control methods for BVD makes me sceptical that uptake of gene edited lines would be any better. If it is going to cost money then that is the first big hurdle.

Ken

 

[sstterry]

While gene editing on live animals may look appealing, we do not know what else editing certain genes can affect. These animals, like humans, have evolved over thousands and thousands of years and there is a reason certain genes may still exist in the genome. Some of the genes may have a purpose that we do not know about. What other purpose they may serve can still be unknown to us.

Gene editing in a plant is one thing, live animals are something completely different, at least that is my view on the whole thing.

 

[Ebenezer]

I'm just thinking about the genetic bottleneck that would be created if a few animals were the source of such "goodness".

 

[Buck Randall]

I really can't see the point of it. BVD can be controlled pretty easily and cheaply through other means such as vaccination and biosecurity. Traders would be most at risk but they have no control on how the cattle they buy in were produced. I guess gene editing means they will produce a line of cattle resistant to BVD. There are two areas where BVD affects cattle, the first in breeding animals especially in unvaccinated 1st calf heifers and naieve older cows where the sudden introduction of a PI can result in loss of pregnancies and ill thrifty calves. The 2nd in intensive feeding situations where a PI can pass on a transient infection to healthy cattle lowering their immunity for a while to respiratory diseases. Maybe feedlots could offer a premium on cattle from these gene edited lines.
The problem getting people to comply with the existing control methods for BVD makes me sceptical that uptake of gene edited lines would be any better. If it is going to cost money then that is the first big hurdle.

Ken

BVD resistance was probably just an easy way to test and evaluate the technology; now they'll move toward something more complicated and economically valuable. If they can develop a way of making animals fescue tolerant or anaplasma resistant, they're going to make a pile of money.

 

[Dusty Britches]

I really can't see the point of it. BVD can be controlled pretty easily and cheaply through other means such as vaccination and biosecurity. Traders would be most at risk but they have no control on how the cattle they buy in were produced. I guess gene editing means they will produce a line of cattle resistant to BVD. There are two areas where BVD affects cattle, the first in breeding animals especially in unvaccinated 1st calf heifers and naieve older cows where the sudden introduction of a PI can result in loss of pregnancies and ill thrifty calves. The 2nd in intensive feeding situations where a PI can pass on a transient infection to healthy cattle lowering their immunity for a while to respiratory diseases. Maybe feedlots could offer a premium on cattle from these gene edited lines.
The problem getting people to comply with the existing control methods for BVD makes me sceptical that uptake of gene edited lines would be any better. If it is going to cost money then that is the first big hurdle.

Ken

If it is so easy, then why "...a virus that costs the U.S. cattle sector billions of dollars annually...."; "... BVDV is one of the most significant viruses affecting the health and well-being of cattle worldwide, ..."; and "...Despite more than 50 years of vaccine availability, controlling BVDV disease remains a problem since vaccines are not always effective in stopping transmission...."

Even though we vaccinate, there's no guarantee that it will stop transmission.

 

[Ky hills]

BVD resistance was probably just an easy way to test and evaluate the technology; now they'll move toward something more complicated and economically valuable. If they can develop a way of making animals fescue tolerant or anaplasma resistant, they're going to make a pile of money.

I think the money is key. In the name of science, but goal of money, technology expands, Good for a select few in the short term, but potentially harmful in many ways in the long term.
Fescue tolerance and Anaplasmosis resistance certainly would seem beneficial especially for this region however we would not be willing to use the technology as we believe that to be a road that should not be traveled.
We'll continue to select cattle acclimated to fescue and to try to mitigate the risk of Anaplasmosis.

 

[Buck Randall]

I think the money is key. In the name of science, but goal of money, technology expands, Good for a select few in the short term, but potentially harmful in many ways in the long term.
Fescue tolerance and Anaplasmosis resistance certainly would seem beneficial especially for this region however we would not be willing to use the technology as we believe that to be a road that should not be traveled.
We'll continue to select cattle acclimated to fescue and to try to mitigate the risk of Anaplasmosis.

In the future it will probably be just like GMO crops. You can choose not to plant them, but they'll become virtually impossible to avoid as the industry accepts them.

 

[Ky hills]

In the future it will probably be just like GMO crops. You can choose not to plant them, but they'll become virtually impossible to avoid as the industry accepts them.

I'm not denying that, just hoping that doesn't happen anytime soon.

 

[Logan52]

This is like so many other things: artificial intelligence, gain of function research, and such like.
With our loss of moral compass our inability to wisely apply what we learn leads to a tower of Babel situation.
I think we will vainly try and shut the barn door after the mule is already running down the road.

 

[50/50Farms]

I think it's too far for me, myself and Irene. I think everyone and everything is made the way God wants it done and I ain't afraid to say it neither. Breeding them to knock the horns off or change the color or their frame and flesh is one thing. People get too caught up in the barbed wire paradigm, if half of the world's population dropped dead tomorrow there'd be mass herds of feral cows roaming the countryside inside of a few months. Why would we want to interfere with the concept of only those genetically most fit and luckiest reproducing?

 

[wbvs58]

If it is so easy, then why "...a virus that costs the U.S. cattle sector billions of dollars annually...."; "... BVDV is one of the most significant viruses affecting the health and well-being of cattle worldwide, ..."; and "...Despite more than 50 years of vaccine availability, controlling BVDV disease remains a problem since vaccines are not always effective in stopping transmission...."

Even though we vaccinate, there's no guarantee that it will stop transmission.

In the time I've been on CT I don't think I've read one thread where BVD has been a problem. I'm sure GB or Butch will dig some up to prove me wrong but I have mentioned it as a possibility many times with small runted calves but it is always discounted as a possibility. Is it because people like to bury their heads in the sand about it.
In Australia we don't have the live vaccines available mainly due to the fact that our senior government Vets have a hang up allowing them as it may affect the serology testing, a bit of a hangover from our successfull eradication of Brucellosis in the late 1970's when bangs vaccination was discontinued so cattle were tested and slaughtered the +ve's.
Vaccination of cattle is poorly taken up here mainly due to the cost and need to muster twice for the initial vaccination so most big producers just live with it, some try to run PI's with their heifers prior to joining but because it is endemic there is little obvious loss. The big losses tend to occur in herds that an attempt is made to keep them clean and then they get a PI introduced and so have a problem for a year or two untill it is endemic.
So I would say the cost and not seeing an obvious benefit is why there is little uptake of vaccination.

Ken

 

[Travlr]

BVD resistance was probably just an easy way to test and evaluate the technology; now they'll move toward something more complicated and economically valuable. If they can develop a way of making animals fescue tolerant or anaplasma resistant, they're going to make a pile of money.

Probably easier to gene edit the fescue rather than the animal. But there may be ancillary benefits to editing the animal... so who knows?