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In this article we will discuss about Transgenic Animals:- 1. Advantages of Transgenic Animals 2. Disadvantages of Transgenic Animals.
Advantages of Transgenic Animals:
(a) Gene requires certain cellular mechanism to help for the production of protein. The animals used for transgenic purpose naturally carry the mechanism needed to produce complex protein. Theses mechanism is absent in cell culture.
(b) Expression through cell culture or bacterial culture requires constant monitoring and sampling.
(c) The isolation and purification of expressed protein in conventional method is more difficult than purifying proteins from an animal’s milk or body fluid.
(d) It is more cost effective as the product is efficiently passed through milk with an average yield of 53% and with 99% purity.
(e) It has been estimated that transgenic animal can produce in its lifetime $100 to $200 million worth of pharmaceuticals.
Disadvantages of Transgenic Animals:
(a) Transgenic animal project is extremely expensive.
(b) Generation of transgenic animals are also expensive, because of long gestation period, litter size and higher maintenance cost of the recipient animals.
(c) There may be high mortality rate and other deleterious effects on animals used by researchers to create transgenic breeds. It has been observed that transgenic pigs having enhanced growth rate and efficient feed conversion exhibit reduced reproductive performance and may suffer from arthritis and dermatitis etc.
Similarly, transgenic sheep expressing growth horm6ne may show diabetic like conditions. Mayer argues that we do not understand the long term effects of genetic engineering on animals.
(d) Large number of recipients is required for embryo transfer because of low transgenesis rate.
(e) Transgenic foods have been produced and offer better productivity in terms of both yield and quantity. However, there are some apprehension about the safety of transgenic foods.
