Farmscape for January 6, 2026

The use of gene editing has resulted in the creation of lines of pigs resistant to PRRS.
Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome was first identified in the late 1980s.
"The PRRS Resistant Pig: What’s Next?" was among the topics discussed in November as part of Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2025.
Lindsay Case, the director of new product commercialization with PIC, explains the PRRS resistant pig was developed by PIC in partnership with an academic collaborator who identified that the CD163 gene acts as the viral receptor to the PRRS virus.

Quote-Lindsay Case-PIC:
Back in 2015 the University of Missouri identified that, by deactivating a gene called CD163, they could create pigs that mounted no immunological or physiological responses to the PRRS virus, effectively identifying that by deactivating that gene they could create pigs resistant to PRRS.
Later that year, also in 2015, the University of Roslin also identified that CD163 is a gene that codes for the virus receptor for the PRRS virus within the pig and they were able to narrow down a place within that gene that specifically controlled  that viral receptor function of the gene.
By working with really bright researchers across the industry we were able to remove 414 base pairs out of the 2.8 billion base pairs within the pig's genome to specifically deactivate the viral receptor of that CD163 gene.
We were able to introduce this new trait into four of our lines over the past few years to then create breeds or new lines of pigs that have this new favorable trait introduced through gene editing.

Case notes PIC has regulatory approval to produce the pigs in Columbia, the Dominican Republic, the USA, Brazil and Argentina and is working through the regulatory process in Canada, southeast Asia and central America.
She says, because no foreign DNA is introduced, the pigs and the pork are no different than the conventional pigs being raised and consumed today.
For more visit Farmscape.Ca.
Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is produced on behalf of North America’s pork producers