Cloned Mice Created From Freeze Dried Skin Cells In World First (theguardian.com) 42
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Researchers have created cloned mice from freeze dried skin cells in a world first that aims to help conservationists revive populations of endangered species. The breakthrough paves the way for countries to store skin cells from animals as an insurance policy, as the cells can be used to create clones that boost the species' genetic diversity if they become threatened with extinction in the future. While scientists have used frozen cells to produce clones for conservation projects, the cells are kept in liquid nitrogen which is expensive and risky: if there are power outages or the liquid nitrogen is not regularly topped up, the cells melt and become unusable. Freeze dried sperm can also be used to create clones, but cannot be obtained from all animals.
In the latest work, researchers froze dried skin cells from mouse tails and stored them for up to nine months before trying to create clones from them. The freeze-drying processes killed the cells, but the scientists found they could still create early stage cloned embryos by inserting the dead cells into mouse eggs that had their own nuclei removed. These early stage mouse embryos, known as blastocysts, were used to create stocks of stem cells that were put through another round of cloning. The stem cells were inserted into mouse eggs emptied of their own nuclei, leading to embryos that surrogate mice carried to term. The first cloned mouse, named Dorami after a melon bread-loving robot in the Doraemon Manga series, was followed by 74 more. To check whether the clones had healthy fertility, nine females and three males were bred with normal mice. All the females went on to have litters.
Despite the achievement, the process is inefficient -- freeze drying damaged DNA in the skin cells -- and the success rate for creating healthy female and male mouse pups was only 0.2 to 5.4%. In some of the cells, the Y chromosome was lost, leading to female mice being born from cells obtained from male animals. "If the same treatment could be performed in endangered species where only males survived, it would be possible to produce females and naturally preserve the species, the authors write in Nature Communications.
In the latest work, researchers froze dried skin cells from mouse tails and stored them for up to nine months before trying to create clones from them. The freeze-drying processes killed the cells, but the scientists found they could still create early stage cloned embryos by inserting the dead cells into mouse eggs that had their own nuclei removed. These early stage mouse embryos, known as blastocysts, were used to create stocks of stem cells that were put through another round of cloning. The stem cells were inserted into mouse eggs emptied of their own nuclei, leading to embryos that surrogate mice carried to term. The first cloned mouse, named Dorami after a melon bread-loving robot in the Doraemon Manga series, was followed by 74 more. To check whether the clones had healthy fertility, nine females and three males were bred with normal mice. All the females went on to have litters.
Despite the achievement, the process is inefficient -- freeze drying damaged DNA in the skin cells -- and the success rate for creating healthy female and male mouse pups was only 0.2 to 5.4%. In some of the cells, the Y chromosome was lost, leading to female mice being born from cells obtained from male animals. "If the same treatment could be performed in endangered species where only males survived, it would be possible to produce females and naturally preserve the species, the authors write in Nature Communications.
Panspermia... (Score:2, Funny)
Perhaps the Earth was seeded by intra-galactic dandruff
Don't worry, AC, no one will clone you (Score:2)
Why would anyone care that you ever existed?
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Re: Panspermia... (Score:2)
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Hidden camera (Score:5, Funny)
"We've secretly replaced these scientists' regular lab mice with freeze-dried Folgers Crystals. Let's see if anyone can tell the difference."
Re: Hidden camera (Score:2)
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It's funny, but it's a problematic approach. Organisms are part of an ecosystem, with diet affected by seasons, by competition, and the species affected by predation. and whatever family or society structure the species evolved. I'd expect numerous problems with epigenetic changes trigggered inappropriately or without needed triggers in the lab environment, and real difficulty figuring out what those are without the original organisms available. Given the very effective experiments on pre-natal hormones aff
Re: Hidden camera (Score:2)
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I think the problem is still there. The problem is partly the old "nature vs. nurture" one. Family structures, nests, and migration routes are enough only establish successful behavior, and unsuccessful behavior, that evolves as social information rather than genetic information. That information is lost when a species is lost. Some such behavior, such as diet, can modify epigenetic changes, so there is interaction between social and genetic information.
It's also similar to the problem when pet animals are
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"We've secretly replaced these scientists' regular lab mice with freeze-dried Folgers Crystals. Let's see if anyone can tell the difference."
Manager: "Hmm... the mice seem to have a distinct mocca flavor today... and not frothy in the least! Good work, boys!" ... ...
Scientist: *aghast* "Is THAT what's been in your mug every day?!"
Manager:
Scientist:
Manager: N-...no! *turns around and runs*
*Another scientist bursts in the door out of breath*
Scientist 2: Someone put. LSD. In the coffee pot.
Scientist 1: *sips from mug* Have you tried the mice? The boss is right, they really are great today.
Efficiency is not a concern if... (Score:2)
Efficiency is not a concern if the data is sufficiently valuable. Yeah, mice genetic data ain't worth much, but how about racehorses?
Yet it still seems like a pretty weak story. We already know that they are getting better and better at reading and copying various forms of genetic data. And the movies have already applied the reductio ad absurdum rule to the topic. Rule 34 next? (There was already a recent mouse-based invocation.)
I picked racehorses because there are a couple of them living near here, but t
Re:Efficiency is not a concern if... (Score:4, Informative)
Horse breeders have been cloning prize horses for years, but there are rules about where and when they can compete.
Cloned horses cannot race in either Thoroughbred or Quarter horse races, which are the foremost racing breeds. However, Arabian horses allow cloned horses to race, and the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI), permits cloned horses in Olympic sports.
https://horseracingsense.com/c... [horseracingsense.com]
People assume cloned horses have an advantage in competitive racing that horses produced naturally can’t match. However, there is no evidence that cloned horses perform any better than any other naturally-bred horse. The reason is simple. They may share their DNA with famous horses, but they still lack the years of training and favorable environment that truly determine a racehorse’s success. [ibid]
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Thanks for the information, but I think it reads pretty hollow. The excuse of "training and favorable environment" is rather meaningless if you have a bunch of clones and you can try as many kinds of training and as many different environments as you like...
However the interesting question is about the stud fees. Correct me if this part has changed, too (since I don't follow horse racing and was surprised by the clone news), but most of the money used to be in breeding from the winners. For that purpose, th
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The excuse of "training and favorable environment" is rather meaningless if you have a bunch of clones and you can try as many kinds of training and as many different environments as you like...
Well, you can't. There's limitations in time, space, and available personnel, even if you have all the money in the world.
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Well, evidently you haven't heard how much money a winning race horse is supposed to be worth. I admit that my information is dated and I don't care enough to update it, but I know that they used to have auctions where ridiculous amounts of money were bid on the speculations about which of the young horses would be winners. But they weren't planning to make much if any profit on the short racing career of the horses, but mostly on the stud fees after retirement of a winning horse--which fed into the next ro
Where this is leading (Score:2)
I'm thinking that some time this century you will have the option to get a clone or two generated for yourself as needed or desired. At first it will be only for the wealthy, but eventually it will be commonplace.
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Who needs a second version of themselves?
ME!! I need a +1 for the car pool lane that I can tolerate.
DNA + formalin = ? (Score:1)
Evolution Anyone? (Score:2)
If planet earth extincts a species, doesn't that mean evolution happened?
It's hard enough to save a species from near extinction. What makes anyone think that we'll bring anything back that will reproduce just enough to not be called an invasive species?
Since most of these extinct species went extinct because of humans, is the plan to wait until we're back down to a population of 1 billion before they respawn a millennia of species that went extinct?
Seems this is more of a toy for those that want to play g
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God gave us the ability to edit genes and accelerate evolution exponentially. If the baby Jesus didn't want us to edit genes, why does he give us the tools to do so? God doesn't want humans traveling faster than the speed of light (probably to protect the galaxy,) so he banned faster-than-light travel. Jesus doesn't want us to have lightweight batteries than can power a car for 100,000 miles without a charge, so he banned energy storage. God doesn't want you to have a flying car, so he banned anti-gravity.
Hang in there Bredo! (Score:2)
Bredo An obscure reference to one of Nederland Colorado's more famous residents. [dailycamera.com]
Y chromosome (Score:2)
Do we really need more fools with Y-chromosomes? .. I for one am cool with a world full of chicks. Less competition, more people to make me a sandwich.
Re: Y chromosome (Score:2)
Re: Y chromosome (Score:2)
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FFFuck.
As they say... (Score:2)
Mice? (Score:1)
This could be interesting (Score:2)
Horses and camels suffer from genetic bottlenecks. This could be a way to bring back lost breeds from before those bottlenecks, restoring vitality and variation.
Jurassic Park (Score:3)
Uh-oh (Score:2)
Now all the movie stars, models and pop singers are going to start being extra-careful about laundry and surgery starting now. If a freeze-dried culture is enough then they are valuable (criminal) commodities now. Scary thought..
I don't get this... (Score:2)
If the objective is to revive populations of endangered species and the process requires you to have a given species available as well its eggs, then why not just leave those eggs as is rather than turning them into clones, stripping away all genetic diversity from said species?
Am I missing something here?