The UK national livestock biobank: for farming and food security

Tullis Matson (Co-Founder, UK National Livestock Biobank)

Abstract produced by Lydia Keeping (BSc Hons), Laboratory Technician, and Lucy Morgan (BSc Hons), Co-Founder and Biobank Lead, with equal contribution from both authors.

Introduction

75% of the world’s food comes from just twelve plants and five animal species (United Nations, 2019). Globally, 26% of livestock breeds are at risk of extinction (FAO, 2019), with figures rising to 80% for native breeds within countries including the UK (DEFRA, 2019). This alarming risk of extinction, of animals vital to the human food chain, is the result of factors including farming intensification, increasing monoculture, decoupling of livestock production, inbreeding and use of fewer but higher performing breeds in selective breeding programs (FAO, 2019). Rising inbreeding within commercial breeds has been associated with reduced long-term production efficiency and fertility (Wiggans et al, 2016), while loss of native breeds is considered a significant risk for future adaptability and reliance of the livestock sector (DEFRA 2021). Within this paper and accompanying presentation, regenerative cryogenetic biobanking is proposed as a vital action to preserve and protect our livestock sector for future generations.

What is a Biobank?

A biobank is a collection of biological and genetic material (see Figure 1). The UK National Livestock Biobank (UKNLB) is a farm animal biobank established to ensure national livestock preservation and long-term food security. The biobank is based on gamete preservation (sperm, egg and embryo), alongside collection and cryopreservation of skin samples for fibroblast cell line generation (UKNLB, 2024). The collection of skin samples alongside gametes is unique within the UK farming cryopreservation sector, and has numerous applications and opportunities, including preservation of the whole genetic profile of farm species and the regenerative genetic capture of female lines (UKNLB, 2024). Biobanking permits the indefinite storage of genetics beyond the lifespan of the original animal, ensuring the availability of resources for future applications (ERFP, 2023).

Why is the UKNLB Needed?

Gene banks have been recognised as important by the United Nations (UN) in the 2030 agenda, more specifically ‘Sustainable Development Goal 2’ (Zero Hunger). This indicator shows only 152 local breeds and 61 transboundary breeds in Europe have sufficient material to allow breed reconstruction in the case of extinction. This represents less than 1% of EU breeds (FAO, 2019).

The preservation of livestock genetic and reproductive resources for future use is vital to adaptability of this sector to future challenges. The farming sector has many known and unknown challenges for the future, including climate change, heightened disease risk, reduced farming numbers, reduced land availability, increased production pressure for a growing global human population and changes to trade and consumer preferences (FAO, 2019; DEFRA, 2021).

In the case of climate change alone, there is a significant risk of insufficient time to adapt to a more challenging global environment using current production systems (UKFSR, 2021) Capitalising on positive natural mutations in certain breeds could aid in developing ‘future proof’ livestock. Subpopulations of cattle, for example Hereford, have been found to have significant differences in allele frequencies for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with the breed’s ability to deal with environmental stressors (Blackburn et al, 2017). Bos taurus cattle are commonly used in tropical climates due to increased heat tolerance derived from a ‘slick hair gene’ and improved metabolic rate. This gene has been successfully transplanted into Holstien cattle to improve their thermoregulatory ability (Dikmen et al, 2014). These variations in subpopulations offer a valuable range of genetics that could prove vital to future adaptability to environmental conditions.

Several diseases already pose a significant threat to UK farming, with climate change only serving to increase these threats (UKFSR, 2021). The impact of these diseases can be far-reaching, affecting not only individual farmers but also the wider agricultural industry and consumers. These impacts include economic losses, reduced food production, animal welfare concerns and environmental costs from chemicals and other means that may be needed to control disease outbreaks (Whatford et al., 2022). A biobank of livestock samples may not only allow for animal restoration after significant disease outbreak, but it may also allow for the discovery of genetic traits that confer resilience to disease threats and so future adaptability to diseases challenge.

As summarised by Koyun et al., 2016, a food system that has higher agrobiodiversity provides more variety and therefore resilience against climate change, and other challenges to the sector, including heightened disease risk. To provide opportunities for diversity in the future, biobanking is of paramount importance (Bolton et al., 2022). To secure what is available to the sector today, to allow for use and adaptability for the future known (Revive & Restore 2024).

Looking ahead into future technologies such as gene editing, it is also becoming increasing apparent that a repository representing unedited animals from an original population will be required (BSAS, 2024). Gene banks may be needed to ‘un-edit’ populations after CRISPR- Cas9 generated gene editing. This was a major point identified at the recent BSAS Gene Editing Farm Animals: The Facts conference 2024.

Existing Agricultural Biobanks

Seed repositories, such as the Millenium Seed Bank and Svalbard Global Seed Vault, are well established and provide crop production security (Kew Gardens, 2024; Svalbard, 2024). Unlike the crop sector, designated biobanks for livestock species indefinite genetic protection do not exist. Most livestock genetic resources are held as living populations, preserved semen samples and frozen embryos, for short to medium term use in production breeding programmes. Repositories specifically for future conservation, adaptability and resilience of the breeds and species are not present. The UKNLB is therefore the first of its kind, to promote preservation of gametes, alongside skin samples, specifically to provide future reproductive and genetic resources to ensure long term livestock breed security.

A pro-active group, outside the UK, to recognise the need for and potential of farm animal biobanking is NordGen. The Nordic Genetic Resource Centre recognises the unique but highly threatened assemblage of local and regional transboundary farm animal breeds and subspecies, that its member countries represent. In response, NordGen has been actively working alongside the UKNLB since 2022, to produce a co-written white paper that will be submitted in 2025 to appeal for government funding to establish a Nordic Farm Animal Biobank (White et al., in progress).

What samples are banked and their uses

The UKNLB is based on skin and gamete cryopreservation. Skin can be taken whilst ear tagging or specifically for biobanking purposes upon veterinary discretion.

In the laboratory, the skin sample is sterilised and cryogenically preserved in liquid nitrogen (a similar procedure to freezing semen). Samples can be thawed out and cultured to produce viable cells lines that can be used for further breeding technologies such as induced pluripotent stem cell technologies (IPSCs) (see Figure 2 below) and somatic cell nuclear transfer (see Figure 3 on page 11) (Cowl et al, 2024). Benefits of cultured cell lines include the provision of an infinite resource (versus the finite resource of gametes), preservation of the whole genetic profile of the donor animal (versus 50% DNA capture via sperm and egg), and preservation of female lines and neutered animals.

Gamete preservation must continue alongside the skin sample banking, providing for reproductive resources that can be readily used in both short- and long-term production systems (DEFRA 2021). With regards to animals selected for biobanking, of both skin and gametes, it is important that maximum production output is not the only deciding factor.

Characteristics considered suitable for the diversity of UK production systems and national adaptability to future conditions must be included in the biobanking animal selection strategy. This differs to current gamete banks for livestock, where maximum production output and efficiency, sometimes in environments different to those on farm, commonly predominates in animal selection, due to the immediate commercial pressures on the sector. The biobank, by contract, allows genetics to be captured for future use, with adaptability, resilience and sustainability suggested as vital animal selection criteria, alongside production output and efficiency.

Further Applications of Biobanked Genetic Material

In addition to animal regeneration via skin and gametes, the genetic material captured whilst biobanking could also be utilised for genomic passports. This will aid animal and animal product traceability which may be a future requirement for the food production sector. Some larger food companies are already using animal genetic data to confirm animal identification (Tripoli and Schmidhuber, 2020). Samples that are submitted to the UKNLB could also be used for DNA profiling and genomic passports.

There are also reasons that we are yet to know or understand, where a livestock biobank will aid in overall UK food security. There is a large gap between the usage of state-of-the-art technology available to the livestock sector and applying these to local breeds (Bruford et al, 2015). This reduces the amount of genomic data available to determine genetic diversity or erosion within subpopulations. Therefore, it is paramount that as many samples as possible from as wide a range of species are taken and stored now. By increasing knowledge and information gained on livestock gene pools, this improves the adaptability of livestock species to overcome further global issues of population growth, consumer and farmer income and climate change (see Figure 4 on page 11).

Lessons from wild animals

A sector to increasingly recognise the need for biobanking, is the wild and endangered species community. A pioneer in this area is San Diego Frozen Zoo, who started to preserve skin samples and semen from captive-wild animals as far back as 1975 (San Diego Zoo, 2023). These samples, that were banked without knowledge of what future needs and resources would be, are now being actively used to restore threatened species genetic diversity, including the Przewalski horse and Black Footed Ferret (Cowl et al., 2023). The UKNLB is also a sister establishment to a leading conservation charity, Nature’s SAFE, which provides a comparable living biobank model for wild and endangered species in the UK (Nature’s SAFE, 2024).

Current Barriers and Recommendations

Whilst the need for biobanking in the livestock sector is clear, and will likely become increasingly so, the implementation of biobanking is not without barriers that will require navigation, on the individual, regional, national and international level.

By far and large, funding is perhaps the biggest barrier for national livestock biobanking (ERFP, 2023). The costs of setting up biobanking facilities, training staff and funding are significant obstacles identified by the FAO on a global scale.

Where facilities already exist, as in the case of the UKNLB, the ongoing costs of sample submission and processing, sample storage, upscaling of facilities to meet demand, facility requirements for future resource utilisation etc. are further hurdles.

From engagement with farming stakeholders, it is unlikely that the farming community itself will be able to cover the cost of biobanking samples as a complete biobanking model. An issue over sample ownership may also arise if banked samples are farmer owned. The bio banked samples are predominately collected for future use, to ensure national food security. If ownership is via independent farmers, this may restrict future use, where the original owner may have passed away, for example, and relatives do not wish to take over responsibility for the samples and their use.

An alternative to this situation would be government funded biobanking, as is already in place for national seed repositories. This would allow overall costs to be more realistically met and reduce the potential for ownership issues and actual utilisation of the samples upon breed, species or national need.

As present for seed banks, a private arm to the biobank could still exist, to enable individual farmers to utilise resources offered where they have funding for their own animal genetic conservation and advanced breeding tools. Native breed societies could also use the biobank for their own breed security for the future, alongside feeding into the national biobank for likely benefits of their breeds to long term food security.

Livestock producers must remember that a genetic bank is only as good as the material being stored. Therefore, farmers must ensure good genetic health of the current population via responsible breeding practices alongside preserving DNA for future use. The biobank is not an ‘either/or’ technology, but one that must be used synergistically. It should be considered how current populations are bred, maintained and used. For certain breeds and species, optimum mate selection tools in terms of genetic diversity are available, to assist in mate selection within the living population (Dell, et al., 2021).

An open and active dialogue with livestock gene banks that are already established in Europe and further across the world would be beneficial to share best practices, protocols and eventually genetic data. This would aid good quality control practices and management efficiency from the first instance (Zomerdijk et al, 2020). The UKNLB has already established a working relationship with NordGen biobanking task force, as previously described.

Conclusions

In the event of a national level climate or disease challenge, gene banks may be summoned to reconstitute affected livestock populations on a large scale. For this reason, it is paramount that producers and governing bodies recognise the need for livestock biobanking, with the UKNLB already proactively working and campaigning for assistance in this area. While the funding and operational mechanisms of livestock biobanking on a national scale are yet to be determined, an open mindedness to new breeding technologies offered through gene banking will improve genetic diversity and resilience in our livestock breeds both in the present and the future.

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The figures referred to in this paper can be found in the full Digest PDF, available to members in the Members area.