Golden milk of transgenic mice
Mice are already being milked in Moscow
Ruslan Ignatiev, "Express Newspaper" No. 18-2009
A unique dairy farm has been created at the Institute of Gene Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Instead of cows, it contains... mice. The columnist of the Express Newspaper milked them by taking part in an outstanding scientific experiment.
The hornless herd is commanded by the director of the Russian collection of genetic material "Transgenbank" Igor Goldman. He has as many as one thousand heads in his charge. Before admitting me to his charges, he explained why they milk mice.
– This is one of the stages of a global experiment, – says Igor Lvovich. – Our work is carried out within the framework of the program of the Union State of Russia – Belarus. The goal is to create highly effective and biologically safe medicines of a new generation, as well as full–fledged baby food. The basis for obtaining such products is human protein. We will reproduce it from the milk of animals, say, the same goats. But first our specialists need to check the genetic constructs on living objects. Mice are the most suitable model. It is on them that the methods for the production of expensive substances are being worked out.
reference
* Igor Lvovich GOLDMAN was born in Moscow on August 21, 1933.
* A geneticist, a leading specialist in the creation of transgenic animals, a laureate of the USSR Council of Ministers Prize for the identification of chromosomal disorders in cattle.
* At the age of 67, he seriously took up sports. By the age of 75, he is a multiple world record holder in powerlifting among veterans. According to doctors, Goldman's biological age is 35 years.
* At the World Championships in the USA, Igor Lvovich broke the American record by 20 kg, which was held for seven years. They respectfully call it "the Russian heavy lifting machine." He is friends with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The spool is small, but expensiveThe tailed models are not simple at all, but golden ones with unique properties.
They are on the "assignment" of scientists to produce the protein of women's milk – lactoferrin. One such mouse costs $3000!
"Our mice are transgenic," says Elena Sadchikova, head of the transgenesis laboratory. – The first such mouse was born in our country on April 1, 2001. Since then, we have produced 7052 animals. They begin to milk them at the moment when they have babies. The lactation period lasts 21 days. And during this time, we disturb the mother only twice. After all, the cubs must also eat. We get a drop of milk from one female at a time. Studies have shown that it is no different from the female one, and in some parameters it is several times superior to it. Our foreign colleagues have also confirmed that mice produce human milk in our country.
The mouse lives only one and a half to two years. Farm employees have to regularly conduct a census of the four-legged population. I was interested in how mice are milked. According to some reports, this is done barbarically in closed foreign laboratories. There, the unfortunate animals have their nipples cut off and then the valuable liquid is squeezed out. In a number of countries, special crucifixion machines are used. Some also put the females to sleep with ether.
– We have never used such fanatical methods, – says researcher Tatiana Ermolkevich. – At first I sucked milk with a thin tube. This is a very difficult and physically demanding procedure. Some skill and great caution were required here, since the product could unwittingly get into the mouth. In this way, it was necessary to process all ten papillae. Only two or three mice could be milked during the day - after the first session, the tongue hurt. And you need to have time to milk the whole herd in a short time. They began to think about how to mechanize the process. That's when they decided to adapt a peristaltic pump – it is used in medicine for pumping blood. We found the appropriate size hoses, micro-tubes and other necessary accessories. All connected and received a modern milking machine for mice.
Master of Mouse milkingI got to the farm at the time of milking.
I wanted to try to extract milk from the mouse udder myself. They put a white sterile robe on me, put my hands in rubber gloves and let me into the boxing. The living conditions for these expensive rodents turned out to be just perfect. Mice are kept in the purest metal cages. On each – plates with the passport data of the inhabitants. On top – dry granulated feed and a drinking bowl with fresh water. A small group lives in one such apartment. The staff picked up suitable females. They were separated from the babies two hours before the procedure. Nurses were placed with the cubs. As I was told, it takes about 90 minutes to wait until the female's breast is filled with milk again. So that the mother would not be indignant and did not resist, she was given light anesthesia, then a special drug was introduced, under the influence of which the animal relaxes. I found the udder of the mouse with great difficulty, and as soon as I put a glass capillary to the nipple, the white liquid filled the miniature hoses. Thus, I served three animals and milked three drops of a valuable product!
– Our scientists, together with specialists from Belarus, have learned how to extract from transgenic mice from 15 to 40 grams of human lactoferrin per liter of milk, – says the head of the group Alexey Deikin. – This is many times more than that of a female nurse. So far, nowhere in the world has created the same effective technology for the reproduction of such a valuable protein. Abroad, at best, they extract only half a gram for the same amount of product. This is considered a huge success. We have seen that the same methods can be applied in an experiment on goats. Our employees have repeatedly traveled to Belarus. A huge number of animals were operated on there. As a result, two transgenic goats were born.
Of course, you won't get milk from them, but the offspring have already appeared. There are also females in it. After positive results, it is planned to create a herd of 500 transgenic goats. From the human lactoferrin obtained from them, infant formulas will be made for newborns left without mother's milk. They will protect the child from bacterial, viral, fungal infections. Then it will be possible to significantly reduce the mortality of children. And this is a very important job, because, according to official statistics, 50 percent of babies in the world today are "artificial."
The substance obtained from transgenic animals will also be used in the manufacture of cheap and highly effective medicines. After all, while the cost of most deficient human medicinal proteins ranges from $1,000 to $7,000. And, for example, blood clotting factor VIII costs almost $3 million.
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru06.05.2009