Genome editing in large animals: current status and future prospects

Jianguo Zhao; Liangxue Lai; Weizhi Ji; Qi Zhou

doi:10.1093/nsr/nwz013

Genome editing in large animals: current status and future prospects

Natl Sci Rev. 2019 May;6(3):402-420. doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwz013. Epub 2019 Jan 31.

Authors

Jianguo Zhao^{1

2

3}, Liangxue Lai⁴, Weizhi Ji^{5

6}, Qi Zhou^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
² Savaid Medical School, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
³ Institute of Stem Cell and Regeneration, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
⁴ South China Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510530, China.
⁵ Yunnan Key Laboratory of Primate Biomedicine Research, Institute of Primate Translational Medicine, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, China.
⁶ CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology (CEBSIT), Shanghai 200031, China.

Abstract

Large animals (non-human primates, livestock and dogs) are playing important roles in biomedical research, and large livestock animals serve as important sources of meat and milk. The recently developed programmable DNA nucleases have revolutionized the generation of gene-modified large animals that are used for biological and biomedical research. In this review, we briefly introduce the recent advances in nuclease-meditated gene editing tools, and we outline these editing tools' applications in human disease modeling, regenerative medicine and agriculture. Additionally, we provide perspectives regarding the challenges and prospects of the new genome editing technology.

Keywords: agriculture; disease model; genome editing; large animal; xenotransplantation.