Info about Animal Cloning
Species cloned
Cloning is the process used to make copies of DNA fragments and it is called molecular cloning, of cells and this is cell cloning or of whole organisms.
To create an animal that is genetically identical, there is used the process calle somatic cell nuclear transfer or for short, SCNT. This procedure means that a nucleas from an adult cell of the donor is taken in placed in an egg cell that has had its own nucleus removed. However, these clones are not actually identical since some DNA is also found outside the nucleus in the egg cell and this is called mitochondrial DNA.
The most famous animal cloned is doubtlessly Dolly the Sheep. As it was the first mammal successfully clones, its fame have become global. Dolly was cloned in Scotland, at the Roslin Institute. She had a relatively short life, from 1996 to 2003, when she died at the age of six. As dolly represents a part of history in the science of biotechnology, her body was stuffed and her remains are exposed at the Royal Museum from Edinburgh, which is part of the National Museums of Scotland.
Dolly was so much known because what their creators realized was a true breakthrough. It was for the first time when the concept that an adult cell can be gnetically reprogrammed was demonstrated on a mammal. However, obtaining Dolly was not easy as 237 eggs were used to get only 29 healthy embryos from which resulted only three lambs. From these, Dolly was the only survivor. Nevertheless, some claimed that her premature death was due to a pathology that resembles accelerated aging. Other scientists, among which Ian Wilmut, her creator, say that her death caused by a respiratory infection had nothing to do with a genetic predisposition.
Although Dolly was the first mammal clones, she was not the first animal successfully cloned. Actually the first success in this domain happened quite a while ago. A tadpole was the first vertebrate to be cloned in 1952, but many scientists wondered if the cloning had really taken place as experiments from other laboratories were not able to reproduce the result.
In 1963, a carp was cloned by Chinese embryologist Tong Dizhou and it was the first fish ever to be cloned.
In 1986, ten years before the Dooly the Sheep a mouse was cloned by scientists Nikitin, Sviridova, Veprencev and Chaylakhyan in Russia. Although the results were published in the Biofizika magazine in 1987, their experiment did not get the attention Dolly had.
In 2000, a monkey from the Rhesus species was cloned in Tetra using the method of ebryo splitting.
In 2001, the first endangered species, a gaur was cloned. Also in this year two male cattle, Alpha and Beta were cloned in Brazil. Both were males. A cat named CopyCat or CC was cloned in late 2001 and the result was obtained once again in 2004 with Little Nicky. This was the first animal cloned for a commercial reason.
In 2003 the next species were cloned: a rat-Ralph, a mule-John and Prometea, a horse female.
In 2009, a water buffalo called Samrupa that died at only five days old from a lung infection and a camel Injaz were cloned.