Complete Preservation of Iowa State's Chicken Lines Now Possible

AMES, Iowa — Iowa State University is the first university to participate in a new, innovative process to preserve poultry germplasm. Until recently, only the male genetics of chickens could be preserved by freezing. New technology makes it possible to collect and cryopreserve ovaries from embryos or baby chicks, which allows preservation of the female side of genetics. The Iowa State University Poultry Research Center is home to the world's oldest inbred research lines of chickens. The chicken lines came from multiple origins, with the oldest dating back to 1925. Others began in the mid-1950s with the importation of lines from Egypt and Spain. Susan Lamont is a Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor of Agriculture and a professor of animal science. She joined the Iowa State animal science faculty in 1983, and took over responsibility for the chicken lines. "To regenerate a pure genetic line, it's necessary to have both the male and female genetic material. In the past, with only the chicken sperm available, if there was a disastrous loss of a valuable pure line, the conserved sperm could be used to fertilize the females of another, still-existing line," Lamont said. "But the offspring would represent only half the genetics of the line that was lost." In early 2010, hundreds of fertile eggs were shipped from Iowa State over the course of several weeks to the USDA National Animal Germplasm Preservation Center. The center, in Fort Collins, Colo., conserves genetic resources of animals and crops that are deemed important to U.S. agriculture and landscapes. Genetic resources at the national center are preserved using state-of-the-art cryogenic technology. In 2005, more than 300 poultry semen samples from individual roosters at Iowa State's poultry research center were collected and transferred to the center. The center doesn't routinely share the germplasm with researchers because of the limited collection, but ensures it will be available if other sources are somehow lost or destroyed. "It's a safeguard against natural disasters," Lamont said. "Iowa State's inbred poultry lines are a unique and valuable resource. Some represent lines that are quite different from what's used in commercial production today, which makes them a powerful tool for genetics research."