China has taken tampering with nature to the new level with their use of the CRISPR technique. They have been using this to edit the genes in dogs, specifically to create super dogs with huge mutated muscles.

The original purpose of the experiments being to introduce certain degenerative human diseases in dogs for efficient testing as, “Dogs are very close to humans in terms of metabolic, physiological, and anatomical characteristics.” said study co-author Liangxue Lai in Technology Review, also a researcher with the Key Laboratory of Regenerative Biology at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health.

The idea of “customised pets” was also thrown into the mix after the gene for myostatin (MSTN) was effectively knocked out in beagles. Myostatin is the hormone involved in controlling muscle growth, and without it, the muscle mass of the beagle roughly doubled, as Technology Review reports. The details of this work can now be found at the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology.

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The beagles are similar to super-muscled Belgian Blue cattle and whippet dogs, both of which have been bred in such a way that they now “naturally” suppress myostatin production at the genetic level. Some humans have actually been born with this mutation.

The diseased dog models plan to mimic diseases like the Parkinson’s and muscular dystrophy. And it seems pretty close that there will an array of mutated pets with changed qualities of physical proportions, color patterns, intelligence and temperament.

Author:Technology Blog