Nuclear Transfer in Cattle
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For decades, a dream of animal breeders has been to clone (make exact genetic copies of) outstanding animals. This was first
achieved by splitting embryos (1); however, with this technique, only a few animals of the same genetic origin could be produced (2). The second approach, which seemed to be more promising, was the embryo reconstruction using a single nucleus from an embryo
to an enucleated one-cell embryo. This technique was based on an idea proposed by Spemann in 1938 (3). With only few exceptions, experiments on frogs and fish provided scientific evidence that all the cells in the body of
an animal appear to contain the same genetic information, being contained in DNA, a molecule located in the nucleus of cells.
Thus, within an animal, the DNA sequence in the mammary cells is identical to skin cells. These cells differ in their appearance
and function because they utilize different parts of the genetic information, not because the total amount of information
differs. Furthermore, all these cells have genetic information present in the one-cell embryo that develop into the animal.
Therefore, if the nucleus of any of these cells were used to replace the genetic information in any one-cell embryo, an exact
genetic copy of the animal whose cells donated the nucleus would develop. This theory was confirmed by successful experiments
in frogs and fish (4,5). Using similar procedures and inner cell mass cells (ICM) as nuclear donors, Illmensee and Hoppe (6) reported the birth of live offspring (mice) in 1981. However, these results were never confirmed.
Affiliation(s): (2) Agrobiogen GmbH, Hilgertshausen, Germany
(3) Central Veterinary Research Laboratory, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
(3) Central Veterinary Research Laboratory, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Book Title: Germ Cell Protocols: Volume 2: Molecular Embryo Analysis, Live Imaging, Transgenesis, and Cloning
Series: Methods in Molecular Biology | Volume: 254 | Pub. Date: Mar-24-2004 | Page Range: 213-225 | DOI: 10.1385/1-59259-741-6:213
Subject: Cell Biology
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