Transgenic livestock for agriculture and biomedical applications

The classical definition of a genetically engineered or “transgenic” animal would be “those animals modified by recombinant DNA (rDNA) techniques” according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (United States Food and Drug Administration, Guidance #187, 2009). Thus, the introduction or deletion of any gene by using recombinant DNA would fall into this category. Since the first reports of stable germline transmission of integrated DNA in 1982, hundreds of thousands of transgenic animals have been produced, the vast majority of which are mice used in biomedical research. However, there are also thousands of agrarian and aquaculture species that have been produced for a wide variety of purposes from production of human biopharmaceuticals, xenotransplantation and to enhance economically important production traits. We can separate the transgenic animals produced in our laboratory into 3 major classes; production agriculture, biopharmaceutical production in milk and biomedical models of human disease. This brief review will highlight some of those projects in each category.