Chinese researchers clone 4,000-year-old native swine breed

CHANGSHA -- Two cloned piglets born in Central China's Hunan province are expected to promote China's pork industry and diabetes treatment research while preserving a 4,000-year-old local breed once pushed to the brink by foreign competitors. According to the Xiangtan municipal livestock breeding station, the cloned Shaziling piglets, delivered via surrogate mother on Jan 24 in Xiangtan county, mark a milestone in China's decade-long push to preserve indigenous livestock breeds using biotechnology. Once a staple in Hunan's famed hongshao rou, Shaziling pigs, a breed native to Xiangtan, nearly vanished as industrial foreign breeds dominated Chinese farms in previous years. To protect the genetic resources of the Shaziling pig, the breeding station initiated the somatic cell cloning experiment with support from a research team led by Yin Yulong, a Chinese Academy of Engineering academician and chief researcher at the Insitute of Subtropical Agriculture under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, starting in June 2024. Wu said the birth of the cloned Shaziling pig facilitates long-term preservation and live recovery of genetic resources, providing a valuable experimental model for innovative conservation methods for high-quality local pig breeds.