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舌尖上的中国科学家：CRISPR 改造小猪，“口感”更佳哟！

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导读	在新一期的美国《国家科学院学报》（也即是PNAS）报道了中国科学家所做的一项研究：由赵建国带领的研究团队利用CRISPR/Cas9基因编辑系统，向猪细胞内插入了一段名为解偶联蛋白1（UCP1，一种可以减肥的基因片段）的基因，大大的提高了猪肉的瘦肉率，培育出来的猪比正常的猪肉脂肪降低24%！

一种神奇的小猪：低脂还耐寒

导读

我们大中华，自以为傲的便是吃货本色。从小龙虾到大闸蟹，生蚝泛滥到中国吃货神兵天降。不说《舌尖上的中国》，单是每个地方的特色都让人垂涎三尺。中国人的一天如果不和吃打交道，那么一天至少要失去大半的色彩。然而我们有想到过吗？高大上的基因编辑，有天也会用到提高二师兄的产量上。

在我们的印象中，我们常常会将CRISPR/Cas9基因编辑系统和一些很高深的东西联系起来。但是这些看起来很高端的技术也是可以为我们大众所服务。

在新一期的美国《国家科学院学报》（也即是PNAS）报道了中国科学家所做的一项研究：由赵建国带领的研究团队利用CRISPR/Cas9基因编辑系统，向猪细胞内插入了一段名为解偶联蛋白1（UCP1，一种可以减肥的基因片段）的基因，大大的提高了猪肉的瘦肉率，培育出来的猪比正常的猪肉脂肪降低24%！

停！在这里，我们先不发表言论，看看《Science》上面的一篇报道怎么看到这件事情。

我们先来看看这一篇报道的标题：

“These gene-edited pigs are hardy and lean—but how will they taste?”

“Lean” may not be the term you associate with a good bacon strip or pork chop. But these leaner, cold-hardier piglets, created through CRISPR gene editing, could be a hit with the pork industry. The threat of hypothermia forces cold-climate farms to invest in heat lamps and other accommodations for their shivering piglets. And fatter pig breeds—though tasty—tend to grow more slowly and consume more feed than leaner ones to produce the same amount of meat. As an alternative to conventional breeding, researchers used the gene-editing technology CRISPR to introduce a gene called UCP1. Thought to have disappeared from the ancestors of modern pigs about 20 million years ago, the gene helps cells dissipate more heat and burn fat. Twelve transgenic piglets endowed with a mouse UCP1 gene were better able to maintain their body temperature than their unmodified counterparts when they were exposed to cold for a 4-hour period, the authors report today in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And when the pigs were killed, fat made up less of their carcass weight—about 15% versus 20% in unmodified controls—while their average percentage of lean meat increased from about 50% to 53%. Will less fat make them less tasty? The authors don’t expect UCP1 to reduce the fat that accumulates in muscle fibers and contributes to flavor, but they’re now producing more pigs to make sure.

这篇文章最终关注的重点：肉，到底好不好吃！

看来不论是中国还是美国，吃货的心都是一样的。

那么就让我们一起来看看，赵建国团队到底做了一个什么事情呢？

首先分享一下相关文献的链接：

研究中相关数据：

http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2017/10/17/1707853114.DCSupplemental

《Science》报道：

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10/these-gene-edited-pigs-are-hearty-and-lean-how-will-they-taste

《PNAS》报道：

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/10/17/1707853114

原文doi：doi/10.1073/pnas.1707853114

那么我们接下来，就来正经的讨论一下这篇，让吃货界大吃一惊的研究，到底是怎么回事。