September 9, 2011

expert reaction to paper in Nature Methods describing methods to genetically modify the domestic cat

Scientists in the US demonstrated a method of genetically modifying the domestic cat, which could provide an important new technique in HIV research.

Dr Robin Lovell-Badge, Head of Developmental Genetics, MRC National Institute For Medical Research, said:

“When carrying out research with animals, it is important to consider the most appropriate species for the questions to be addressed, and to adopt methods that are the least harmful, are efficient, and are likely to generate valuable data. The work on transgenic cats, by Wongsrikeao, Poeschla and colleagues, satisfies all of these requirements.”

Dr Laurence Tiley, Senior Lecturer in Molecular Virology, University of Cambridge, said:

“This technology can be applied to a wide range of species, for many of which there are clear applications and potential benefits. It will be interesting to see how enthusiastically this capability in cats is received and adopted by the HIV and neurobiological research communities and what other research opportunities it offers. A representative non-primate animal model would be a fantastic new tool for studying HIV pathogenesis.”

Professor Helen Sang and Professor Bruce Whitelaw, The Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, said:

“This report on a novel method for producing genetically-modified cats is an advance on previous studies using somatic cell nuclear transfer (cloning) in cats, where technical inefficiencies in the method limit application. This report describes the use of viral vectors to introduce genes into oocytes, a method that has already been shown to be very efficient in a range of other mammalian species, including pigs and sheep. The method described here is shown to be relatively effective in cats, reducing the number of experimental animals that are needed, although the embryological technologies are not yet as successful as in livestock.”

Professor Ian Jones, Professor of Virology, University of Reading , said:

“The findings from the Minnesota group demonstrate the ability to create transgenic cats. The genetic modification is in the germline so it is passed to offspring offering the possibility of producing a colony of identical animals. Although this is new for cats, it is has been done before for non-human primates and it remains to be seen which of these animal species will prove to be the more useful for human medical research, primates because of their similarity to man or cats because they are easier to breed. The authors suggest the technology will be useful for AIDS research but no data directly showing their utility is presented. What the authors do show is that cats can be made resistant to a natural cat virus, Feline Immunodeficiency Virus, which has some similarities to the AIDS virus. The data show very directly how a complex organism is simply the product of its genes and it is likely that transgenic cats will have a place in medical research going forward. However the benefit to AIDS research, while possible, is subject to more experimentation. The release of transgenic, perhaps disease resistant, cats, into the companion animal market is not discussed.”

‘Antiviral restriction factor transgenesis in the domestic cat’ by Pimprapar Wongsrikeao et al., published in Nature Methods on Sunday 11 September.