CCMB produces mouse sans lactating properties

The Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) has successfully used the 'gene knockout technology' to produce a mouse sans lactating properties by deleting 'Kappa casein' gene, responsible for lactation in mammals, from an embryonic stem cell.

It is for the first time that an Indian research institute has achieved this feat of gene knockout in the laboratory and also for the first time in the world it has been proved that Kappa casein is directly responsible for the ability to lactate.

Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, Lalji Singh, director of CCMB, and Satish Kumar, who led a team of researchers that undertook the project, said their work had far-reaching implications in terms of commercial applications in a variety of areas, including drug discovery, pharmaceuticals, dairy and basic studies of evolution.

According to Singh, gene knockout technology is a direct, though tedious and expensive, approach to find out the function of a gene.

CCMB is among the few biotechnology research institutes in the country that has been provided with a host of facilities, including the gene knockout technology, Atomic Force Microscope and Electronic Microscope among other modern research tools.

With the gene knockout technology, a cow or a buffalo can be transformed into a body factory to produce a whole lot of pharmaceutical proteins alongside milk proteins including the ones used for blood clotting through lactation.

"The mouse strain produced by the CCMB scientists will be a useful animal model for the creation of novel dairy animals with the modified milk properties and also in the efforts to produce genetically modified farm animals producing pharmaceutical proteins in their milk," Lalji said.

However, he was not sure of getting a patent for their work as research institutes of many developed countries, including UK, had already reached the stage of clinical trials in this area. Moreover, the road to reach the level of commercial applications of their work was very long, he said, hoping to enter into collaborations with other R&D institutes very soon for further research in this direction.

Results of CCMB's work on Kappa casein gene have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, this week.

Apart from continuing their work on gene knockout technology, CCMB is also establishing an exclusive medical biotechnology centre with stem cell research facilities in collaboration with Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) at a cost of Rs 22 crore here.