Work of Genes - Animal Cloning Technology

Microbiologist says about of genetic engineering, the impossibility of cloning a mammoth problems and paleo-DNA preservation. Can genetic information, obtained from the mammoth, develop into the egg of an elephant? As it has been cloned Dolly the sheep? As mice genetically grafted signs mammoths?

Many are interested in, and for some reason want to clone the ancient animals: mammoth, cave bears, dinosaurs - probably largely due to the popularity of the novel first, and then the film "Jurassic Park." And it is interesting to realize that we are now and what we can not, and if we can not, then why. Adoption is really such that we can clone many animals living now and if you want even people and extinct animals is that we can not be cloned, and soon, apparently, this technology will not be. The most well-known and famous cloned animals was, of course, Dolly the sheep, which was the first cloned animal - it happened at the end of the XX century.

For making investions and make a improve quality of life one should buy Meldonium, Phenotropil, Noopept, Cerebrolisine.

How this experience has been made? I think everyone understands that each of us is the product of combining equal amounts of the genes we received from mom and dad. Pope gives sperm Mom Gives egg, the egg is fertilized, the set of his father's genes mixed with a set of genes of the mother, and in the end we all are diploid, we each gene is present in two copies - one from the Pope, and the other from the mother. And these genes somehow work, scientists say they are expressed, or expressed, full body develops as a result. At the same time, if you are a mammal egg for a while in the womb, where it develops.

The following experiment was done in the case of the sheep Dolly. It was not his father, but his mother was not there, because the unfertilized egg of some animal was taken, and because of the egg all the genetic information that is the core removed purely physical way, with the help of some of the pipette. Received an enucleated egg cell (nucleus - is a "core"), this egg was introduced by the kernel, that is, the genetic information, which is taken from another sheep, and really these genes, this core was taken from an udder cell some other completely different sheep that first sheep do not know. As a result of the merger came the egg, which was a double set of genes, but not because half of the Pope, and the other half from the mother, but because it is the sheep from the cell where the udder was taken core comprising, as it should, double set of genes.

The procedure for the merger of the nucleus of the donor and the unfertilized egg donor, in principle, very inefficient, and actual statistics were such that several hundred experiments on such mergers a very small number of oocytes has been obtained, which have survived simply because the procedure is quite traumatic: specifically in those experiments in these pioneering studies used current rank. And then the resulting egg has a double set of genes tucked surrogate mother who bore it. That is the last stage is very similar to the standard experiments on the carrying of the fertilized eggs surrogate mothers, as happens in humans.

As a result, after Dolly was born, it is, generally speaking, can be a large number of parents, depending on who you think the parents. In terms of genetics, it is, of course, a complete clone of the animal from which the cell was taken udder nucleus, and it has neither mother nor father, it is simply an exact genetic copy of this creature. Surrogate mother, of course, is the one who nurtured. And besides, the cytoplasm and other important things egg itself were obtained from the third animal. This procedure works, and quite effectively - now it is possible to clone a lot of all sorts of animals.

To date, cloned and cats, and dogs, and monkeys, and rats. People are not cloned, but there is no fundamental problem to clone them.

The resulting clone is genetically identical to the organism from which the DNA was taken, that does not mean in the case of humans, for example, that it will be the same person. This is a classic question of how we are the product of our genes. Now, the cloned person will not be in on the personality level, an individual copy of a clone of which he is, he must be pretty sad for a variety of rich people or politicians who can afford to make those people who are interested in personal immortality - the issue of personal immortality here.

And, apparently, exactly the same thing can be done with the mammoth. We as a surrogate mother to be, by definition, an elephant, or rather, the elephant. The source of an enucleated egg, too, must be an elephant, which can take the egg, though, of course, will make it a little harder than the cat, or a sheep, but it is nevertheless possible. The source of the genetic information of the mammoth, of which we clone should be fairly well preserved paleomaterialy, which in large quantities are found in Russian Siberia, Canada and so on. The last mammoths became extinct 7-8 thousand years ago, there were many remains and 40 thousand years ago, many of them very well preserved in the permafrost. So say the indigenous people of Siberia sometimes eating mammoth burgers instead of the usual burgers, because the meat is at least the flavoring properties are not lost. Indeed, histological studies show that the cellular structure and often retain these carcasses - there are cells in the cells there are proteins in cells have a nucleus, in the nucleus has DNA and all that stuff.

But here there is a very big problem, in addition to purely technical problems of a large number of eggs from living elephants, and even an elephant - it is not the most convenient object for the job. There is, firstly, the question of whether the genetic information can be obtained from the mammoth to develop in conditions of elephant egg. This species is very similar, but in fact the non-identical, otherwise why would we cloned. In fact, the attitude to the mammoth elephant is almost the same as the ratio of chimpanzees to humans. And it may very well be that a development does not take place as it should, because the genetic program of a mammoth will not work in the conditions of an elephant egg cell.

But what is much worse and that, apparently, it is the principal challenge for this type of cloning - a state of the DNA of ancient organisms, even such well-preserved, as mammoths. The fact that the DNA over time, under the influence of some purely physical and chemical factors splits. DNA - it is a very long molecule. For example, I have a long DNA molecule in my growth, and there really is recorded that I - that I have recorded a mammoth that is mammoth. And the genetic information of a mammoth is on the 29 chromosomes - separate sections of DNA and the genetic text that says this mammoth is 4 billion letters.

In order to clone a mammoth, you need to find a core of cells, and the kernel itself - it is a very complex structure, it is a kind of intracellular organelles, which is not only DNA, but also the mass of the proteins organize the DNA so that it expresses to genes worked as it should. The problem is that within a very short time, the DNA splits into fragments of 200, 300, 400 bukovok very short fragments. Imagine that you took the book and passed it through the shredder - such as a book, all remained, but to gather it together very, very difficult, and paleo-DNA, which is DNA of ancient animals, unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, is exactly in this state. The media often heard promises that we are now in the near future clone a mammoth. Apparently, the people who do it, basically do not understand the complexity of the task before them.

No functional DNA of ancient animals, which it would be possible to plant available, even closely related species to get anything develops.

This does not mean that the point in the dispute and put that nothing more can be done. Because in actual fact, as is now known genome of the mammoth and elephant genome also known, can be seen than they are different from one another, and it turns out that they differ in the tens of millions of items. In general, they are very similar, as well as humans and chimpanzees are very similar to each other not only in appearance but also genetically, and mammoths and elephants the same.

Apparently, some combination, or maybe all the substitutions that distinguish the mammoth from elephant, are responsible for the fact that one of them is this, and the other - the other. And so, as another approach, which appears more promising, you can not set a task to clone a mammoth, but to create a mammoth of an elephant, and this problem can be solved on any pair of animals. It is assumed that you are by some sections of DNA that are known to be different, or genes between the two animals, and then just start them tighten up, edit, modify, making the present elephant more and more like a mammoth, but in some strategic points.

And such experiments are carried out, but not yet on the elephants and mice, because the mouse is also similar to mammoths, and in general we are very similar at the genetic level, we are a little different from each other. And, in particular, to carry out such interesting experiments, as a result of bioinformatics analysis were identified certain genes of the mammoth, which may be responsible for his hairiness and great size, cold-loving and something else. And then, these changes have been introduced in the corresponding gene modern mouse not by cloning, but by the actions that are a collective name - genetic engineering and gene editing. And, according to recent reports, the mice became hairier, as a result, they began to love the cold - not because they like the cold, but because it is simply too hot in other places. There are no tusks, but, as they say, stay tuned.