Some aspects of poultry biotechnology: A review

Abstract

Animal biotechnology is the application of scientific and engineering principles to the processing or production of materials by animals to provide goods and services. Sometimes the animal biotechnology has been limited to genetic-based biotechnology only. However, the animal biotechnology uses the other, different techniques, such as artificial insemination, embryo transfer, in vitro fertilization, embryo culture, cloning by nuclear transfer from embryonic or adult somatic cell, etc. Due to the specificity of embryonic development in birds, which occurs inside the egg, the growing embryo can be directly manipulated via a window that is cut on the eggshell at a very early embryonic stage. This fact was used to develop in ovo technology – direct administration of a bioactive substance suspended in a solution to the incubating egg. This review integrates recent progress and new insights into methods of transgenic bird production (A), and possibility to modify the avian development (B).