Pig organs for transplantation genetics adapted to people – Moskovsky Komsomolets

The first embryos from donor organs will be launched next year

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The researchers say that now they have learned to kill dangerous viruses from the DNA of any animal whose organs can be used in transplantation. Geneticists from the US have learned to change the donation of organs from pigs in order that they have taken root in the human body without any negative effects. Americans, we can say, authorities made the pigs completely safe and invisible to the human immune system, by removing them from the destructive traces of retroviruses using genomic editor CRISPR. About his works, scientists told the journal «Science».

Photo: morguefile.com

A team of experts from Harvard University, led by Professor George Church’s come up with a new technique called CRISPR. Know-how influences pork DNA in such a way that the latter is almost miraculously transformed into a fully analogous human DNA.

the Harvard promise that the successful results of their research in the future it will be possible to solve the problem of shortage of organs for transplantation people . But there will be many years before the happy moment of the very first launch of special pigs donor.

With a unique modern medical techniques Edit and “be removed” those portions of pork DNA that are a real threat to people. For example, biologists experimenters deactivated retrovirus “settle” in the pig genome millions of years ago. It is considered for you and potentially dangerous.

With their new technique CRISPR scientists removed from the genome of pigs 62 version of the retrovirus.

Church and his research team report that their CRISPR-system could “erase” in porcine kidney cells are all the genes of endogenous retroviruses. After that, the likelihood that the cells pigs infect men fell into a thousand orders.

Currently, scientists from various countries are trying to “breed” of genetically modified animal tissue which could provoke a strong immune rejection.

However, cells from pigs are another danger. Their genome has multiple copies of the endogenous porcine retrovirus (PERV), able to produce viral particles infect the tissue of people.

The researchers now intend to in the upcoming 2016 received already a pig embryo, which not only will be spared from the virus, but will optimally tolerant to the immunity of people.