Page 10 - National Poultry Newspaper

Australian meat chickens are not genetically modified
MODERN breeds of is outlined that modern other to produce the next al animal characteristics, Australians said it would soya bean meal can no in any way.
chicken are no more ge- netically modified than your poodle or labrador.
meat chickens have been selectively bred to grow well and put on a lot of muscle (meat) without the need for GM or other treatments, including hor- mones (hormones have not been given to meat chickens in Australia for more than 50 years). Selective breeding – not genetic modification
generation.
Selective breeding
and while genetic modifi- cation isn’t currently used to alter the genome of chickens, it could poten- tially be used some time in the future to create chickens that are resist- ant to diseases like avian influenza, which can have severe impacts on bird and even human health.
be OK to use genetic modification to build re- sistance to food safety risks.
With regards to GM feed ingredients, it is impor- tant to note that soya bean meal, which provides an important source of pro- tein and amino acids in the chicken diet, is not usually available in suf- ficient quantities in Aus- tralia and has to be im- ported.
longer be sourced in suf- ficient quantities to meet the poultry industry’s needs, and thus chicken feed will often contain GM soya bean meal.
The chicken’s digestive processes break all in- gredients down into their chemical components, which are the same as for non-GM ingredients.
Given consumers’ un- certainty around whether chickens raised for meat are genetically modified – 37 percent of Australians say yes, 44 percent say they don’t know and only 19 percent say no – then there is a need for the Australian Chicken Meat Federation to explain...
therefore does not make an animal, or in this case a chicken, a genetically modified organism.
Do we use GM feed?
Genetic modification is not needed for mod- ern commercial breeds of meat chicken to grow the way they do.
Much of the world’s soya bean production is from genetically modified vari- eties and in the countries that produce most of the world’s soya beans, tra- ditional soya bean meal becomes mixed with ge- netically modified meal during processing, storage and distribution.
Feed that contains GM ingredients has no im- pact on the chicken meat
To learn more about chicken feed, you can visit chicken.org.au/chicken- feed-whats-in-it
Genetic modification is the direct manipulation of a plant or animal’s ge- nome (set of genes) using biotechnology.
For example, chicken breeding companies have used an X-ray unit called a lixiscope to identify leg bone abnormalities in meat chicken breeding stock, allowing them to actively select against the presence of any abnor- malities in breeding stock, thereby improving overall leg health in meat chicken breeds.
So, while on first thought almost half (46 percent) of Australians surveyed couldn’t think of any reason why it would be acceptable to geneti- cally modify chickens, when provided specific examples one in three (32 percent) said it would be OK to use genetic modi- fication to improve over- all health and welfare of chickens and to help build resistance to avian flu strains (27 percent).
About a quarter of all canola grown in Australia is GM.
ents in Australian chicken feed – wheat and sorghum – are not GM.
These days, many dif- ferent technologies can be used to determine which chickens would make the best parents to produce the next generation.
Another important source of protein and amino acids in chicken diets comes from locally grown canola seed.
Consequently, there is no difference in the meat. The two main ingredi-
The larger, ‘meatier’ chickens of today are that way due to selective breeding and improved nutrition, which is cov- ered at chicken.org.au/ selective-breeding-why- is-it-important-and-what- does-it-mean where it
Selective breeding is achieved through the simple mating of animals with the most desirable characteristics with each
There are positives and negatives to any approach, including selection of ide-
One in four (23 percent)
Guaranteed non-GM
Selective breeding, on the other hand, leads to gradual but cumulative changes in a population of animals over time using natural processes.
www.chicken.org.au
Monash University houses
the first transgenic quail
facility in Australia
THE chicken embryo has been a popular animal model in ba- sic research, particu- larly developmental biology research.
than chickens allows you to house more birds in limited space.
Completed in 2017, the Monash Trans- genic Quail Facility is unique and ground- breaking as it breeds transgenic Japanese quail lines, which play an important role in a plethora of scientific research fields.
The MTQF is an ap- proved Physical Con- tainment level 2 and QAP5.1 quarantine- certified facility.
The research world has been slow to adopt the quail as a transgen- ic animal model, due to the outdated method of genetic manipula- tion available.
Notably, they have transformed the process of genotyping, with a green fluorescent protein-tagged con- struct that is expressed in the lens of the eye only when the process of transgene integration has been successful.
In collaboration with scientists from the CSIRO, researchers have been able to es- tablish more effective ways to modify the gene expression in the quail model.
Quails are a power- ful animal model for use in academic re- search, sharing 95 per- cent of their genome with chickens.
Using a transposon genome integration system (Tol2), since 2016 researchers have produced seven trans- genic lines for the sci- entific community.
The poultry industry can benefit from using quails.
The researchers are now experimenting with using the revolu- tionary CRISPR/Cas9 system for genome ed- iting.
Genetically modified quail could be ben- eficial to the poultry industry by perform- ing large gene modi- fication screens to improve disease resist- ance or wellbeing in quails before selecting specific target genes to be tested in other poul- try animals.
There are many ad- vantages to the Japa- nese quail model.
At MTQF, the re- searchers can produce genetically modified quails for both aca- demic research and industry.
Their genome has been sequenced and is publicly available.
They are an efficient model, taking six to seven weeks to be- come sexually mature, allowing six genera- tions per year for fast- track genetic studies.
Eggs can be shipped nationally and glob- ally.
Like chickens, they lay about one egg per day, which can be stored at 15C for a week.
For more informa- tion, contact Dr Olivi- er Serralbo (olivier.ser ralbo@monash.edu) or visit monash.edu/ research/infrastruc ture/platforms-pages/ transgenic-quail
Their smaller size
These researchers are in the process of some pioneering work, optimising breeding, genetic modification and embryo imaging techniques.
Page 10 – National Poultry Newspaper, October 2018
www.poultrynews.com.au