By Paul Elias
San Francisco - A microscopic worm may be the key to heart-friendly bacon.
Geneticists have mixed DNA from the roundworm C. elegans and pigs to produce swine with significant amounts of omega-3 fatty acids - the kind believed to stave off heart disease.
Researchers hope they can improve the technique in pork and do the same in chickens and cows. In the process, they also want to better understand human disease.
"We all can use more omega-3 in our diet," said Dr Jing Kang, the Harvard Medical School researcher who discovered the omega-3-making gene in the worm.
Kang is one of 17 authors of the paper appearing Sunday in an online edition of the journal Nature Biotechnology.
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The cloned, genetically engineered pigs are the latest advance in the agricultural biotechnology field, which is struggling to move beyond esoteric products such as bug-repelling corn and soy resistant to weed killers.
Hoping to create healthier, cheaper and tastier products that consumers crave, Monsanto and its biotech farming competitors like DuPont are developing omega-3-producing crops that yield healthier cooking oils. Kang said 30 academic laboratories are now working with his omega-3 gene, presumably pursuing similar projects.
"Consumers have responded pretty positively when asked their opinion of food modified to improve food quality and food safety, just as long as the taste isn't altered negatively," said Christine Bruhn, director of the Centre for Consumer Research at the University of California, Davis.
Earlier experiments have succeeded in manipulating animals' fat content but most never made it out of the lab because of taste problems.
While boosting Omega-3s does not decrease the fat content in pigs, the fatty acids are also important to brain development and may reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease and depression.
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