“We need to know what the levels of the compounds in pigs are that will cause boar taint. The current way of having people sniff for boar taint is both subjective and expensive,” she explains. “So is there a way to measure these compounds cheaply and easily? Can we detect them in fat, for example?”
One current alternative to conventional castration is immunocastration, which means vaccinating the animals to try to keep the two compounds from developing as the pigs hit puberty.
And a team of Canadian researchers is working on a identifying the appropriate genetic markers in hopes of breeding pigs where boar taint won’t be an issue.
DeRosa’s solution involves a biosensor that uses aptamers – small, single-stranded nucleic acids that can bind to large or small target molecules. They’re the “keys” to identifying which DNA sequences will bind to target molecules.
She and her research team are identifying the aptamers that will bind to skatole and androstenone, and are working to have them packaged into a small test kit that can provide results very quickly and without needing to send samples to a lab for testing.
“Our pregnancy test-style kit changes colour if either of these compounds is present in the meat. For example, we can biopsy a small bit of fat from a live animal, and if skatole is found, the aptamer will “grab” it and the test will indicate its presence,” she says.
This could help farmers with breeding, allowing them to select animals that naturally have low enough levels of these compounds so they won’t result in boar taint when pork is cooked. It could also help identify animals at processing whose meat may develop the smell.
DeRosa’s work has received support from Growing Forward 2, a federal-provincial-territorial initiative, through the AgriInnovation Program, and from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.
Source: Aginnovationontario