Livestock Improvement Corporation becomes
first commercial customer for new DNA extraction enzyme
16 February 2006 - The animal genetic testing service of New Zealand’s Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) has become the world’s first commercial user of ZyGEM’s unique new DNA extraction reagent called prepGEM™.
The enzyme, originally isolated from a bacterium from Mt Erebus, Antarctica, is now being used in the patented ZyGEM single-tube DNA extraction process.
The lineage of tens of thousands of animals, including dairy cows, beef, deer and sheep, will now be determined each year using prepGEM™ to extract DNA from hair, tissue and blood samples. Lineage information is used for breed improvement to boost New Zealand’s animal agricultural productivity. Some samples from dairy herds in the United Kingdom and Australia are also being tested by LIC’s GeneMark DNA service, based at Hamilton, New Zealand.
LIC’s work improves the breeding and performance of the nation’s dairy stock, and is also moving further into the beef, deer and sheep sectors.
GeneMark and Animal Health Manager Simon Yarrow says samples reaching his firms laboratory vary in volume, quality and type.
But GeneMark is finding that prepGEM™ is extracting a more robust, clearer, DNA sample. This is making it easier and faster for laboratory technicians to then analyse and score. Generally it was extracting DNA three times faster. “ZyGEM’s product also seems to be a system better suited to automated use, handling millions of samples a year, something we want to expand into,” Yarrow says. “A lot of other (reagent) kits involve a lot more handling.
“There’s a simplicity in the prepGEMTM process that suits us.”
Yarrow says GeneMark believes that ultimately the majority of farmers will genetically test their stock, and be increasingly required to do this as food safety, supply chain and disease control issues come to the fore.
“At some time, we expect DNA will be taken from every animal. We are then talking about DNA tests on 4.5 millions cows, about the same number of beef, a million deer and more than 30 million sheep, in New Zealand alone.”
Yarrow says prepGEMTM is saving GeneMark by:
- Reducing time to produce test results
- Cutting the retesting rate, and
- Opening the way for greater automation.
GeneMark evaluated prepGEMTM last year, and is now the world’s first commercial buyer and user. Other major reagent users around the world are partnering in product trials. ZyGEM hopes to convert those firms to commercial buyers as their trials conclude over the next few months.