O M I CS P u blishi ng G ro u p J Veterinar Sci Technolo Journal of Veterinary Science & Technology - Open Access www.omicsonline.org Review Article OPEN ACCESS Freely available online doi:10.4172/2157-7579.1000101 Volume 1• Issue 1•1000101 Recent Advances in Reproductive Biotechnologies in Sheep and Goat Basil Alexander 1,2 *, Gabriela Mastromonaco 1,3 and W. Allan King 1 1 Department of Biomedical Sciences, Ontario Veterinary College (OVC), University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada 2 Department of Farm Animal Production and Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka 3 Reproductive Physiology, Toronto Zoo, 361A Old Finch Avenue, Scarborough, ON, M1B 5K7 Keywords: Reproductive biotechnologies; In vitro/in vivo fertilization; Artificial insemination; Somatic cell nuclear transfer; Transgenesis Contents This review focuses on the platform of recent advances in reproductive biotechnologies in sheep and goat. Here, we discuss some aspects of veterinary and biomedical importance in artificial insemination using sexed semen, in vitro/in vivo fertilization, interspecies in vitro fertilization, multiple ovulation and embryo transfer (MOET), somatic cell nuclear transfer and transgenic animal production in sheep and goat. Some of these technologies are already widely used in the cattle industry, and some are new to the goat and sheep industry. Introduction The world sheep and goat populations in 2006 were recorded as 416 and 489 million, respectively [1]. Reproductive biotechnologies are playing an increasingly important role in the production and management of these species. Animal biotechnology encompasses the application of science and engineering principles to the processing or production of materials to provide services or goods for human use [2]. Examples of current animal biotechnologies include artificial insemination using fresh, frozen or sexed semen, embryo transfer using fresh or frozen in vivo or in vitro produced embryos, cloning using somatic cell nuclear transfer procedures and production of transgenic animals. Recent advances in reproductive biotechnologies have shown important developments in the technologies and their delivery that promise to yield significant benefits for their application within the livestock industry as well as in biomedical sciences. This review focuses on the recent advances of biotechnologies in sheep and goats. Artificial Insemination (AI) Artificial insemination is the procedure involving the mechanical deposition of pre-collected semen into the uterus of an estrous female by a technician. The widespread commercial application of AI, a robust tool in livestock breeding, began in earnest in the 1950’s after researchers developed methods to successfully freeze cattle semen [3]. This technology, which is the most extensively applied reproductive biotechnology in the world, has many valuable advantages such as reducing venereal diseases, rapidly increasing genetic merits of the production animals through selective breeding and eliminating lethal alleles. The potential to pass high genetic merits of a selected male to thousands of females, makes this a far more efficient technology for producing large numbers (1.5 x 10 8 ) of offspring per year compared to female based technologies, such as embryo transfer (ET), which can only produce a few progeny from a selected female. More recently, the advent of separation of sperm into X- and Y-chromosome fractions using flow cytometry has added a new dimension to livestock production [4]. *Corresponding author: Dr. Basil Alexander, Department of Farm Animal Production and Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka Fax: 0094 81 238 9136; Email: baalexan@uoguelph.ca or pabda@pdn.ac.lk Accepted September 23, 2010; Published September 29, 2010 Citation: Alexander B, Mastromonaco G, King WA (2010) Recent Advances in Reproductive Biotechnologies in Sheep and Goat. J Veterinar Sci Technol 1:101. doi:10.4172/2157-7579.1000101 Copyright: © 2010 Alexander B, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Since the first report of live rabbit pups of predetermined sex using X and Y-enriched sorted semen over 20 years ago [5], there have been more than 40,000 births of live animals resulting from the so- called Beltsville sperm sexing technology [4]. This sperm sexing technology has proven to be a reliable and more efficient method of obtaining predetermined sex in animals compared to other relatively wasteful methods of embryo sexing and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis [6 - 8]. Live offspring born from fresh sex- sorted semen have been reported in many species including cattle [9], pigs [10,11], horses [12,13] and sheep [14,15]. As the sorting procedure can separate sperm only at a speed of approximately 10 million per hour, inseminations have to be carried out using limited numbers of sperm in each insemination dose compared to the conventional standards for AI. To obtain high success rates with sorted semen AI, most trials have been carried out using fresh sorted semen, nevertheless, use of frozen sorted semen is ultimately more beneficial to the livestock industry as it can be stored for long duration and easy to transport anywhere in the world. Semen sexing technology Semen sexing is the process of separating spermatozoa into two subpopulations containing X-chromosome and Y-chromosome bearing spermatozoa. In theory, use of the X-bearing spermatozoa fraction for insemination will result in female progeny, while the Y-bearing spermatozoa fraction will give male progeny. Considerable efforts have been made in this area over the past 30-40 years, but only recently has there been considerable progress, particularly in cattle [16]. The most commonly applied technique for the separation of a fresh semen sample into X and Y-chromosome bearing fractions is fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS). The concept behind this technique is described below: Fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) This technique involves the separation of X- and Y- bearing spermatozoa in small quantities based on the DNA content of the spermatozoa so that they can then be used in in vitro fertilization and AI programs [17]. The procedure is relatively slow and requires expensive infrastructure at least for mass scale commercial application. The technique is based on the biological principle that the ISSN:2157-7579 JVST, an open access journal