Sperm Mediated Gene Transfer (SMGT) in Chicken

A transgenic animal as originally defined by Gordon and Ruddle (1981), is an organism carrying recombinant molecules that were intentionally introduced by human intervention. Classically this entailed the stable integration of the transgene within the host animal’s genome and its transmission to progeny through normal breeding programmes. Transgenic chicken holds great promise in basic biological research and in industrial applications. Beyond their intrinsic value as model systems in biological research, transgenic chickens hold promise in many commercial and industrial applications. Chickens deposit large amounts of proteins into their eggs (Ivarie, 2003). A transgenic chicken could conceivably function as a bioreactor for the production of commercially or pharmaceutically important proteins, which are difficult or impossible to produce economically in prokaryotic systems. Gene transfer technology may also prove to be a useful complement to traditional poultry breeding methods in the improvement of commercially important production traits such as growth and disease resistance. Both intra and inter-species transfer could be used to introduce genes controlling desirable physiological functions unavailable in the existing pool of genetic variation (Etches, International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 7 (2017) pp. 4379-4386 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com