| 项目编号: | BB/N000129/1
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| 项目名称: | Customised Surface Markers for the Separation of X and Y Bearing Mammalian Sperm |
| 作者: | Nabeel Ahmed Affara
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| 承担单位: | University of Cambridge
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| 批准年: | 2015
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| 开始日期: | 2016-01-04
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| 结束日期: | 2019-31-03
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| 资助金额: | GBP571647
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| 资助来源: | UK-BBSRC
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| 项目类别: | Research Grant
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| 国家: | UK
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| 语种: | 英语
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| 特色学科分类: | Agri-environmental science
; Animal Science
; Genetics & development
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| 英文摘要: | The pre-selection of offspring sex would be hugely beneficial in animal husbandry. In many farm species such as pigs or dairy cattle, female offspring are much more economically important than males, while in other species such as racehorses or beef cattle, males are preferred. For example, adult male boar meat can have an "off" flavour known as boar taint, thus making it uneconomical to raise intact male pigs to high weights. Currently, boar taint is avoided by early slaughter or castration of male pigs, which is ethically undesirable as well as economically wasteful.
This project seeks to discover ways to separate sperm bearing an X chromosome (which will give females) and those bearing a Y chromosome (which will give males) before fertilisation occurs. Currently, the only way to do this is by using a dye to stain the DNA in the sperm head, and separating the sperm that have more DNA from those that have less - this works because the X chromosome is slightly larger than the Y. This "flow-sorting" process is (a) slow and cumbersome and not commercially viable for some species such as pig where large doses of semen are required for artificial insemination and (b) involves staining the DNA and shining an ultraviolet laser on it, both of which can potentially damage the DNA. There is thus a strong demand for more efficient and safer ways of separating X and Y sperm.
This project aims to approach this issue by using modern molecular genetic transgenic techniques to create animals that produce sperm expressing an artificial surface marker. This will be done in such a way that either only X or Y bearing sperm have this marker on the surface. The marker can then be used to separate X or Y bearing sperm from each other. By depleting the semen of sperm that express the surface marker, this will leave an ejaculate population enriched in the sperm of the opposite sex that do not contain the artificial surface marker gene to be used to breed the next generation. In livestock, this would enable sperm selection while preventing genetically modified organisms entering the food chain. |
| 资源类型: | 项目
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| 标识符: | http://119.78.100.158/handle/2HF3EXSE/100816
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| Appears in Collections: | 科学计划与规划
气候变化与战略
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作者单位: | University of Cambridge
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| Recommended Citation: | |
Nabeel Ahmed Affara. Customised Surface Markers for the Separation of X and Y Bearing Mammalian Sperm. 2015-01-01.
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