Food science: Fast-growing genetically modified trout and salmon could soon be the first transgenic animals on the table

Dawn of the Frankenfish

Monitor - Dawn of the Frankenfish | Technology Quarterly | The Economist

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THE Belgian blue is an ugly but tasty cow that has 40% more muscle than it should have. It is the product of random mutation followed by selective breeding—as, indeed, are all domesticated creatures. But where an old art has led, a new one may follow. By understanding which genetic changes have been consolidated in the Belgian blue, it may be possible to design and build similar versions of other species using genetic engineering as a short-cut. That is precisely what Terry Bradley, a fish biologist at the University of Rhode Island, is trying to do. Instead of cattle, he is doing it in trout. His is one of two projects that may soon put the first biotech animals on the dinner table.

Belgian blues are so big because their genes for a protein called myostatin, a hormone that regulates muscle growth, do not work properly. Dr Bradley has launched a four-pronged attack on the myostatin in his trout. First, he has introduced a gene that turns out a stunted version of the myostatin receptor, the molecule that sits in the surface membrane of muscle cells and receives the message to stop growing. The stunted receptor does not pass the message on properly. He has also added two genes for non-functional variants of myostatin. These churn out proteins which bind to the receptors, swamping and diluting the effect of functional myostatin molecules. Finally, he has added a gene that causes overproduction of another protein, follistatin. This binds to myostatin and renders it inoperative.

The upshot of all this tinkering is a trout that has twice the abdominal muscle mass of its traditional counterparts. Moreover, this muscle is low in fat, like that of its bovine counterparts. That, and the fact that the animal's other organs are unaffected, means it does not take twice as much food to grow a fish to maturity.

The genetic engineers at Aqua Bounty, a company based in Waltham, Massachusetts, have taken a different route using a different species. They are trying to grow supersize salmon by tinkering with the genes for growth hormone. Two snippets of DNA are involved. One, taken from a relative of the cod called the ocean pout, promotes the activity of the gene that encodes growth hormone. The other, taken from a chinook salmon, is a version of the growth-hormone gene itself. Unmodified salmon undergo a period of restricted growth when they are young. Together these two pieces of DNA produce growth hormone during that lull, abolishing it. The result is a fish that reaches marketable size in 18-24 months, as opposed to 30 months for the normal variety.

It is one thing to make such fish, of course. It is quite another to get them to market. First, it is necessary to receive the approval of the regulators. In America the regulator in question is the Food and Drug Administration, which Aqua Bounty says it has been petitioning for more than a decade and which published guidelines for approving genetically engineered animals in 2009. Aqua Bounty has now filed its remaining studies for approval, and hopes to hear the result this year. Dr Bradley has not yet applied for approval.

It seems unlikely that either of the new procedures will yield something that is unsafe to eat. But what happens if the creatures escape and start breeding in the wild? For that to be a problem, the modified fish would have to be better at surviving and reproducing than those honed by millions of years of natural selection. On the face of it, this seems unlikely, because the characteristics that have been engineered into them are ones designed to make them into better food, rather than lean, mean breeding machines.

But there is a chink in this argument. As Mark Abrahams, a biologist at Memorial University in Newfoundland, points out, it is not just the fish that have been modified by man, but also the environment in which they could escape. Many of the creatures that eat salmon and trout, such as bears and some birds, have had their ranks thinned by human activity. Dr Abrahams thinks it possible that fast-growing salmon could displace the natural sort in places where predators are rare.

Aqua Bounty is addressing such concerns by subjecting developing eggs to high pressures. This alters their complement of chromosomes, giving them three sets per cell instead of the usual two. Such “triploid” fish are perfectly viable, but they are sterile. Only a small, sequestered breeding stock is allowed to remain diploid. The company claims a 99% success rate with its pressurising technique which, according to John Buchanan, its research director, meets the FDA's requirements. As for the trout, Dr Bradley says his fish have enough trouble breeding on their own for it to be unlikely that they would do well in the wild. To get them to lay eggs and produce milt (seminal fluid) you have to squeeze them by hand. But he says his fish could also be made triploid if necessary.

Whether people will actually want to buy or eat the new fish is another question—though they buy the meat of Belgian blue cattle at a premium. If people will pay extra for meat from a monstrosity like the Belgian blue, anything is possible.

Monitor

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Dawn of the Frankenfish

Food science: Fast-growing genetically modified trout and salmon could soon be the first transgenic animals on the table

From the June 12th 2010 edition