New gene-editing approach could be used to eliminate disease-causing mutations from pedigree dog breeds or even from clones of individual dogs
Gene-edited beagle puppies
Okjae Koo/ToolGen
Two beagle dogs have been born in South Korea from cloned skin cells altered by CRISPR gene editing. CRISPR-edited dogs have previously been created by altering fertilised eggs, but this is the first time they have been created by cloning.
Many pure-bred pedigree dogs have disease-causing mutations. Gene editing could be used to eliminate these without affecting other traits. So, for this purpose, the cloning approach has advantages over the editing-eggs approach, says Okjae Koo at biotech company ToolGen.”[It] is more reliable for generating various pure-bred …