Prospects for the genetic manipulation of dairy cattle: opportunities beyond BST.
The dairy industry, with regulatory approvals of recombinant chymosin and bovine somatotropin (BST), has been at the forefront of food and agricultural biotechnology. The commercial fate of these products is one of several factors that may affect the success of future genetic manipulations in dairy cattle and dairy products. Other factors include technical and reproductive constraints in cattle and the cost of producing transgenic cattle. Early applications of genetic manipulation in cattle, for reasons of cost recoupment, may favor production of heterologous proteins in milk for pharmaceutical and medical use. Such applications could benefit genetic modification of milk and milk proteins for food use by providing advance knowledge and experience in mammalian protein expression. Other research opportunity areas that could affect prospects for genetic manipulation of dairy cattle include genome mapping, metabolic pathways, growth and development, and cattle/microbe interactions.
Jones
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Office of Agricultural Biotechnology, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC 20250-0904, USA.
Cordle
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MK