An insulin-producing rooster, giant rabbits with an implanted growth gene, a curly ram that has intermarried with … a spider. No, these are not characters from the wonderful garden of Dr. Salvator, the hero of Belyaev's fantastic story
In the Podolsk region, some 40 km from the Moscow Ring Road, in the village of Dubrovitsy, the Institute of Animal Breeding of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences is located, whose scientists, having crossed the boundaries of classical selection, are now developing transgenic technologies with might and main. For what? To obtain breeds of farm animals with specified valuable traits. The head of the laboratory of reproductive cryobiology of VIZH, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences Vugar Bagirov, kindly agreed to conduct an excursion to the mysterious enclosures of the Institute.
- You have no idea where you are, - emotions are whipping from the talented Azerbaijani zootechnician who moved to live and work in the Moscow region many years ago. - It was here that the technology of freezing sperm was developed for the first time in the world. The whole world then began to use it. Cryopreservation of sperm after death is also our development. And how many animals are there that you will not find anywhere else in the world! Well, let's go quickly, I'll show you our pride.
The first object that everyone at the institute is really proud of was … an unremarkable chicken coop.
Well, what is unusual about your chickens?
- The fact that they lay eggs with human protein. This work is supervised by Doctor of Agricultural Sciences, Professor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences Lev Konstantinovich Ernst. For many years he has been dealing with the problems of transferring a foreign gene into the cells of another animal, studying how successfully they get used to a foreign genome. Chickens carrying the human gene are one of the most successful projects. See for yourself.
A graduate student of the institute Denis Beloglazov leads me to a box on which cardboard boxes with eggs are stacked. Like in a supermarket, but only in appearance. Inside each such testicle is a valuable product of somatotropin (human growth hormone), for grams of which thousands of dollars are paid on the world market. This gene stimulates the production of this hormone in humans! First, it is transferred in vitro (that is, on a laboratory bench) into the construct of germ cells removed from the chicken. It takes some time for their reproduction, after which the scientists take a syringe in their hands and inject the resulting transformed cells into a chicken. That is, outwardly it looks like an ordinary injection to a mother, inside which a future chick is already being born. But he is no longer destined to hatch - eggs are obtained here for the sake of the protein itself. Each has a very high concentration of somatotropin,you can't get it anymore. The chicken egg turned out to be the best bioreactor.
It seems that the name itself - growth hormone - speaks for itself. But few people know that it is vital for already grown people. If the body malfunctions and the pituitary gland begins to produce an insufficient amount of growth hormone, people have excess fat, the condition of muscles, skin worsens, bones soften. To avoid all this, people after 35 years of age are prescribed growth hormone, or, as some also call it, "the fountain of youth."
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- By the way, we also create transgenic chickens, in whose eggs the human protein insulin, which is necessary for diabetics, accumulates, - explains the employee of VIZH.
And chickens with foreign genes introduced by them continue to carry "golden", that is, insulin or somatotropin eggs?
- No, in order to get the next portion of eggs "stuffed" from human protein, each time you need to do the operation with gene transplantation in a new way. We are now working on the creation of a breed of chickens with a "fixed" human gene, which would pass from generation to generation itself. For example, for this cock (a specialist brings me to a cage with a handsome man of different fins. - Author), we have already changed the sex cells. In the future, we hope that the same genetically modified chickens will be born from him.
“Meet,” says Bagirov, pointing to a large curly ram, “this is the only lamb in the world with a spider gene in its genome. We transferred a construct from the spider Nephila madagascariensis into his genome.
What for?
- So that in the future the wool of our ram will acquire the strength and elasticity of the web. It has long been known that spider thread is 5 times stronger than steel (of the same thickness), 2 times more elastic than nylon, does not disappear in any of the solvents. But we will never wait for the required amount of cobwebs - what kind of spider farms would we have to create ?! But it turned out to be possible to cross the genes of two animals in the name of an ideal material.
Did you have to catch Madagascar spiders for this?
- Of course not. The original genetic materials have long been available in special banks both in our country and in the West. We just made an order, and they sent us the gene we needed. Spiders Nephila, which in translation "loving to weave", were chosen by scientists for the most durable web.
According to Bagirov, initially the gene for spidroin, the very protein that is responsible for the strength of the web, was implanted in the mother of the “lamb” that appeared before us. It was only in the lamb that was born that the valuable gene from the Madagascar giant spider manifested itself in every cell.
Now the genetically modified specimen has grown up, the wool began to curl, like a real fashionista.
Well, when can we expect from curly "spider" wool?
- We have already cut it, sent the "fur coat" for examination to one of the institutes. But, frankly, we do not expect quick results for the gene to start producing protein, it may be necessary to wait for the second or third generation of such lambs.
Suppose everything worked out. What can be made from this wool?
- It will be possible to sew body armor from it. In terms of thickness, they will not differ from an ordinary man's shirt, and in strength they will surpass steel armor. And how strong can be obtained lines for parachutes or cables for sea vessels!
Photo: Natalia Vedeneeva / mk.ru
Before we had time to say goodbye to the amazing ram, a languid mooing was heard from behind the fence. An unusual cow was looking at us: the muzzle was like that of our cows, and the horns go up steeply and the wool hangs almost to the ground.
- This is our Yashka. My daughter, good-eye, - the animal Bagirov tenderly calls and explains that we are facing a cross between a Pamir yak and a Russian black-and-white cow. - This is no longer a transgenic miracle, but a selection miracle. Milk gives 10 liters per day with a maximum fat content of 9.5%, it also contains a lot of protein - 5.2%. In addition, the yak cow is more resistant to natural anomalies. For example, it tolerates heat much better. Yashka is the embodiment of the main task of breeders, combining the high adaptive properties of wild animals and highly productive qualities of cultivated breeds.
Is there really a bank of sperm of wild Pamir yaks in the world?
- No, I went to the Pamirs myself. I thought for 7 days, but stayed for a whole month. Well, I was worn out then. It’s just that the yaks don’t let them in, you had to first track down the herd, then kill the male, and collect the sperm from the dead in a special reservoir. This technique was developed by the staff of our institute. They proved that sperm retains all its productive properties if it was collected and frozen in the first minutes after the death of the animal.
Another reason why I had to stay in the Pamirs was its other inhabitant - the argali mountain sheep. I could not pass by such a miracle. As a result, he brought his sperm to the suburbs. Then, with the help of yak sperm, injecting it into the uterus of an ordinary cow, we got a hybrid Yashka, and the argali was crossed with the Russian Romanov sheep in the same way and got the Pamir. If I call Yashka my daughter, then the Pamir is my son, my boy, my hope.
What are his advantages?
- With a difference of only two chromosomes (in argali there are 56 of them, in sheep 54), they are much larger and more viable. My Pamir is now only 9 months old, when it grows up, you can get 150-200 kilograms of meat from it, while from an ordinary Russian sheep you can get a maximum of 50.
By the way, good suitors for our goats turned out not only from Tajik argali, Yakut bighorn sheep (chubuku), which Bagirov hunted in permafrost conditions, and then brought them to VIZH, also fit in for this role. In general, not an institute, but a continuous wedding palace turned out, and all marriages are "interethnic".