PARIS (AFP) - Researchers say they have created cloned piglets that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, the oil that is prized as being beneficial to the heart.

Omega-3 is mostly found in fish, but this supply is threatened by overtrawling and clouded by worries about mercury pollution, which accumulates in fish livers.

A team led by Yifan Dai of the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine transferred into foetal pig cells a gene called fat-1 that had been identified in a well-studied lab animal, a tiny worm known as Caenorhabditis elegans.

The research's prime aim is to gain a better understanding of cardiac function, where hog and human are strikingly similar, the team reports on Sunday in the specialist journal Nature Biotechnology.

注释：

clone：v. 克隆、无性繁殖
piglet：n. 小猪
fatty acid：脂肪酸
beneficial：adj. 有益的
mercury：n. 水银、汞
liver：n. 肝脏
foetal：adj. 胎儿的
cardiac：adj. 心脏的；n. 强心剂
hog：n. 肥（公）猪