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Scientists explore chicken genome to reduce animal testing
October 12, 2001Cultured chicken cells and fertilised eggs could soon replace mice in a range of laboratory experiments, according to British scientists involved in a major new research project announced today.
Scientists, from Nottingham and Dundee Universities, UMIST and the Roslin Institute, are planning to put together a chicken 'gene catalogue' that will allow scientists to knock out individual genes in cultured chicken cells in order to help establish gene function.
The catalogue will be built using data collected for the project by US company, Incyte Genomics and could lead to a reduction in the number of gene function experiments carried out on transgenic mice. At the moment, such gene-function experiments can, in some circumstances, be expensive or awkward to carry out.
"Most chicken genes have equivalents in human beings, so using the chicken to identify what genes are for has a direct impact on our understanding of human biology," says Professor Cheryll Tickle from Dundee University.
The research team, based across the UK, hopes that for many gene-function experiments, chicken cell cultures and embryos will eventually prove to be better test subjects than laboratory mice. One of the most obvious advantages is that chicken embryos develop in an egg rather than in a mother, making it much more straightforward for scientists to manipulate the embryo and carry out investigations.
"Our lack of knowledge about the chicken genome has held back the chicken as a research resource, so we are please to be taking the first steps to understanding the function of the chicken genome," says Dr Dave Burt from the Roslin Institute. "In the scramble to sequence the genomes of various organisms, somewhere along the line the chicken was left out."
This project is the first major attempt to characterize the genome of any bird. The research may also help improve understanding of important areas of bird biology such as song, complex behaviour and evolution.
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
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