Developments in genetic modification of cattle and implications for regulation, safety and traceability

Abstract

Genetic modification techniques, in particular novel gene editing technologies, hold the yet unfulfilled promise of altering genetic traits in farm animals more efficiently than by crossbreeding, allowing for a more rapid development of new cattle breeds with distinct traits. Gene editing technologies allow for the directed alteration of specific traits and thereby have the potential to enhance, for instance, disease resilience, production yield and the production of desired substances in milk. The potential implications of these technological advancements, which are often combined with animal cloning methods, are discussed both for animal health and for consumer safety, also with consideration of available methods for the detection and identification of the related products in the food supply chain. Finally, an overview is provided of current regulatory approaches in the European Union (EU) and major countries exporting beef to the EU, for products from animals bred through established practices as well as modern biotechnologies.

Keywords

cattle / food safety / gene editing / genetic modification / GMO detection / regulation

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality of the Netherlands (WOT-02-002-001/002).

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Jan Pieter van der Berg, Gijs A. Kleter, Evy Battaglia, Martien A. M. Groenen, and Esther J. Kok declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose.

This article is a review and does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2020. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)