Genetic Solutions finds partner for US, Canadian market

Brisbane biotech Genetic Solutions is set to create a tidal wave in the international beef industry's gene pool, after licensing its GeneStar DNA markers to new US partner Bovigen Solutions.

In a move that Genetic Solutions' MD Dr Gerard Davis describes as "a giant step", the Australian company has licensed Bovigen to manufacture and market its GeneStar meat-tenderness and marbling markers in the lucrative US and Canadian beef markets.

The huge cattle herds of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay will be next -- Bovigen CEO Victor Castellon says the agreement with Genetic Solutions gives his company more validated gene markers than any other in the Americas.

The GeneStar markers came out of a cattle genomics project involving CSIRO Livestock Industries and the Cooperative Research Centre for Cattle and Beef Quality, and Meat and Livestock Australia. They have been tested in thousands of cattle in 10 beef-producing countries, and revenues for Genetic Solutions already exceed AUD$2 million.

Under their agreement, Bovigen will take over testing facilities that Genetic Solutions had previously established in the US to market its GeneStar tests, and deliver its DNA-based animal identification and tracking products.

Genetic Solutions has another six DNA markers in its development pipeline, including markers for other genes that contribute to marbling.

The focus to date has been on tenderness and marbling markers, but researchers are now looking for genes involved in other carcass traits, resistance to heat stress, disease, resistance to ticks and internal parasites,

Bovigen will have first right of refusal to any new tests commercialised by Genetic Solutions, which has acquired reciprocal rights to market Bovigen's own DNA markers in Australia. "The agreement with Bovigen will allow Genetic Solutions to focus its energies in other areas, including accelerated delivery of the technology to the Australian industry," Davis said.

Davis said the GeneStar marbling and tenderness markers are rapidly transforming beef quality in Australia. In Australia's beef feedlot business, it takes 250 days, and $2-3 worth of high-protein grain feed per day, to grow to market weight an animal with the tender, fat-marbled meat prized by Japanese teppanyaki diners.

That high input cost attests to the industry's profitability in the face of an inherent inefficiency. No matter how much prime grain they are fed, some animals going into feedlots are genetically incapable of achieving the higher marbling scores that command the highest prices in Japan and the US.

Among the four-, three- and two-star animals are some whose meat will rate zero stars. Even after 250 days on a premium grain diet, their carcasses will fail the standard tests for marbling and tenderness, and will be diverted to lower-value markets.

At $500-750 in feed costs per head, the feedlot industry would save millions of dollars a year if it could intercept these chewy individuals before they go into feedlots. The GeneStar tests now provide the means to do so.

Genetic Solutions has been working quietly with animal breeders, breed associations and feedlot operators to tenderise Australian beef at source, and to transform both its economics and genetics, using the GeneStar DNA marker technology.

Marbling gene

While trawling the cattle genome for genes that contribute to meat quality, genes, CSIRO Livestock Industries researchers identified a variant of the thyroglobulin gene that greatly enhances marbling -- fatty deposits interspersed among the muscle fibres.

The GeneStar marbling test now allows breeders or feedlot operators to identify animals that are at least heterozygous (one copy) but preferably homozygous (two copies) for the high-marbling version of the thyroglobulin gene. The test is performed on the DNA of the follicle at the base of a single hair, plucked from the animal's tail switch.

The results have been spectacular, according to Davis. By using the GeneStar marbling marker to identify two-star animals, breeders have almost doubled the number of cattle with higher scores. Feedlot owners have made significant savings by not having to feed anonymous, zero-star animals.

While marbling contributes to tenderness, Davis says Japanese consumers are more interested in marbling than tenderness per se, because of its effect on taste and the 'feel' of steak in the mouth.

Genetic Solutions markets two GeneStar markers for tenderness -- they detect detecting the 'right' variants of the calpastatin and calpain genes,

Although the technology is new, and the industry is conservative, Davis says the rate of uptake has been rapid -- 15,000 beef cattle have already been tested in Australia and overseas.

The high-marbling and improved tenderness alleles occur at higher frequencies in British breeds, says Davis, while Continental breeds like Charolais and Limousin are in the intermediate range. Tropical breeds like the Brahman and Bos indicus crosses stand to benefit most from the new technology.

Davis says some of the tenderness markers are also likely to be useful for meat-quality improvement in Australia's fat lamb industry.