Pigs genetically edited so their organs can be used for human transplants

Growing human transplant organs in pigs has become a more realistic prospect
PA
Tom Powell11 August 2017

Pig organs could soon be transplanted into humans after scientists used advanced gene editing to remove threatening viruses from the animals' DNA.

All pig DNA contains a cancer virus which infects human calls, making transplants impossible. That hurdle may now have been overcome, according to new research reported in the journal Science.

Researchers in the US used a precision gene editing tool combined with gene repair technology to deactivate the virus in a line of pig cells. Piglets cloned from the cells turned out to be virus-free.

Dr Luhan Yang, co-founder and chief scientific officer at the biotech company eGenesis, said: "This research represents an important advance in addressing safety concerns about cross-species viral transmission.”

British expert Professor Ian McConnell, from Cambridge University, said the research was a "promising first step".

He added: "Successful transplantation of tissues and organs from animals to man, known as xenotransplantation, has been one of the goals of modern medicine for the last 20 years.

"The safe use of pig organs such as kidneys in xenotransplantation has been seen as an approach which could be used to overcome the shortage of donor organs in human transplantation.

"The problem is that all pig cells carry cancer viruses embedded in their DNA. These are known as endogenous retroviruses which, although normally silent, can be activated to become fully infectious for human cells when pig cells carrying these retroviruses are co-incubated with human cells.

"Since xenotransplantation involves long-term intimate cell-to-cell contact the potential for the species jump of retroviruses for the entire life-time of the transplants is a very real one."

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