This genetic breakthrough could help thousands of species cheat extinction

 



They argue that gene editing could recover lost genetic diversity in species at risk of extinction using historical samples, such as DNA from museum collections, biobanks and related species.

The multidisciplinary team of conservation geneticists and biotechnologists is co-led by Prof Cock van Oosterhout at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Dr Stephen Turner from Colossal Biosciences, in collaboration with the Colossal Foundation, the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (University of Kent), Globe Institute (University of Copenhagen), Mauritius Wildlife Foundation (MWF), the Mauritius National Parks and Conservation Service (NPCS), and Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust.

"We're facing the fastest environmental change in Earth's history, and many species have lost the genetic variation needed to adapt and survive," said Prof van Oosterhout. "Gene engineering provides a way to restore that variation, whether it's reintroducing DNA variation that has been lost from immune-system genes that we can retrieve from museum specimens or borrowing climate-tolerance genes from closely related species.

"To ensure the long-term survival of threatened species, we argue that it is essential to embrace new technological advances alongside traditional conservation approaches."

Conservation successes such as captive breeding and habitat protection often focus on boosting population numbers but do little to replenish the gene variants lost when a species' numbers crash.


As populations rebound, they can remain trapped with a diminished genetic variation and a high load of harmful mutations, a phenomenon known as genomic erosion. Without intervention, species that recovered from a population crash may remain genetically compromised, with reduced resilience to future threats like new diseases or shifting climates.

One example of this is the pink pigeon, whose population has been brought back from the brink of extinction -- from about 10 individuals to a population now of more than 600 birds -- by decades of captive-breeding and reintroduction efforts in Mauritius.

Several of the authors have studied the pigeon's genetics to reveal that, despite its recovery, it continues to experience substantial genomic erosion and is likely to go extinct in the next 50 to 100 years. The next challenge is to restore the genetic diversity it has lost, enabling it to adapt to future environmental change -- genome engineering could make this possible.

#Genetics
#Genomics
#DNA
#GeneticEngineering
#CRISPR
#GeneEditing
#HumanGenetics
#PersonalizedMedicine
#Biotechnology
#MolecularBiology

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