Scientists at Auburn University injected alligator DNA into farm-raised catfish.
The scientists found that the fish were more resistant to disease and less likely to reproduce.
They hope the new and less disease-prone catfish will one day be sold for human consumption.
Life finds a way: Geneticists have created disease-resistant catfish using alligator DNA --- and they may one day become a part of our diet.
A group of scientists at Auburn University published a paper in January detailing their efforts to genetically modify catfish with the cathelicidin gene of an alligator.
Cathelicidin, found in the intestines, is an antimicrobial peptide responsible for helping organisms fight diseases.
The gene, which was added using CRISPR, heightened disease resistance among the catfish in comparison to wild catfish. Researchers noted that the survival rates of the catfish were "two- and five-fold higher" in an interview with MIT Technology Review.
Because researchers added the cathelicidin to a gene for a reproductive hormone, it also reduced the catfish's ability to reproduce, which they said was important to prevent genetic contamination of the hybrid fish with wild catfish.
The authors noted some uncertainties in using CRISPR technology --- primarily used and studied in mammals--- on fish. The paper has not yet been peer-reviewed.
However, researchers hope that the alligator and catfish gene-editing can be used in tandem with other catfish breeding techniques to help farmers with their catfish yields.
In 2021, an estimated 307 million pounds of live catfish were produced in the US, primarily in the south. Catfish make up over 50% of US demand for farm-raised fish.
The process of farming them is resource-intensive. Diseases spread among catfish due to lack of space on the farms where they're raised. Around 45% of catfish fingerlings die as a result of infectious diseases. Fish in general are also becoming less resistant to antibiotics.
Although consumers may be uncomfortable with the idea of their catfish sharing DNA with an alligator, Rex Dunham and Baofeng Su, two of the lead researchers of the study, told MTR that the hybrid meat would be perfectly safe.
"I would eat it in a heartbeat," Dunham told MTR.
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i never
was on meowcord kk bb my shit 
with hil just 
manufactured for drama 
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Who the frick eats catfish though? I thought it was something only impoverished SE asian ladyboys do? I just can't imagine it tasting great
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The South n it's yummy bb fried up
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Fair enough, just haven't ever heard it referred to in the context of gourmet food
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oh lol no it ain't gourmet bb kek
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Agreed, get some tarter sauce and it's beautiful
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fried catfish was a childhood thing south; any time i had friends over my parents would make some with okra
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IIRC they love to eat that in the southern burger states
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Heard it's real good smoked
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People farm catfish? Don't catfish taste bad or was I lied to?
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A lot of it depends on where they live and what they eat. Fried catfish is 10/10.
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TIL
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Ah, of course.
Hey, at least they're not U of A who named their football team The Crimson Tide
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We should do this to poors
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I want to frick the conservative out of you. I can't help myself. Every time you come into my office with your low cut shirt and cross necklace subtly splayed across your immaculate breasts I think about taking you, right there, as a man (with your consent, of course, r*pe culture is not okay). I want to pull off your panties and eat your kitty until your juices trickle down to the lower classes. I want you to moan so hard and so loud that you can't form coherent words, let alone talk about what Rush Limbaugh said about immigrants the other day. Each time 'those people' crosses your lips I think about your mouth wrapped around my prodigious peepee as my little people spill out of it. I want to make an anchor baby with you. I want to throw all the papers off my desk and ride you until gay marriage is legal in a majority of States or until you've come enough times to admit that maybe universal health care makes sense. And I mean all this respectfully, of course. I'm a feminist. Why do you do this to me. Why. Do you know what you're doing? Every time you come into my office and sit across from me and cross and recross your legs and talk about the weather and then (somehow) about how unemployment insurance is actually bad for poor people do you know that I'm wondering if your panties are equally as conservative? That I'm curious what you'd look like on top of me, my hands tweaking your nipples like doing so would be tweaking taxes on the top one percent? That I'm thinking about you looking back at me as I frick you from behind, your Jesus necklace swaying back and forth as you scream "Drill, baby, drill!" You're not crazy, just politically hypocritical. Social conservatism is selfish and untenable. Your adherence to laws written when people owned slaves and the largest city was 1/10th of what it is now is ruining this god darn country. And I want you so bad. I want you so so bad. Ugh. Be my Monica Lewinsky. I'll be your Bill Clinton. Let's reach across the aisle... and into each other's pants.
Snapshots:
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Life finds a way::
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published a paper:
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organisms fight diseases.:
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MIT Technology Review.:
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were produced in the US:
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over 50% of US demand for farm-raised fish.:
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45% of catfish fingerlings die:
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less resistant to antibiotics.:
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archive.ph (click to archive)
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