Pet cloning (9 photo)

Ethically controversial business is gaining momentum.





Two hundred thousand units are already ready, another million are on the way.

If you have ever lost your beloved pet, you know what sadness comes after. The house seems to freeze, and everything around reminds you of it. There is an empty bowl in the kitchen, such familiar fur on the chair, a leash and collar are still waiting for walks... But no one is asking to sleep on the bed or yapping around the house, begging for treats or dropping flowers from the windowsill. At such moments, you are ready to give everything, just to get him back. And today it is possible - biologists have learned to clone dogs and cats, so your pet can "come back". But here is the question: is this really a second chance, or is cloning a cruel business on tears?



No expertise is needed here, everything is clear!

Actually, cloning was originally invented exclusively for scientific purposes and saving endangered species. And contrary to popular belief, Dolly the sheep was not the first clone. Experiments to create identical animals have been going on since 1952, and before Dolly, frogs, chickens, and mice were cloned. And the famous sheep was born only in 1996. However, the difference between her and the first clones was colossal. The first experiments were conducted on the basis of embryonic cells - germ cells have the potential for the development of the organism. But to create Dolly, an udder cell was taken from a donor sheep. That is, the clone appeared on the basis of a ready-made separate organ of an adult animal. This was a colossal breakthrough, and scientists enthusiastically went further.





Dolly herself also became a mother. And 6 times!

The dream of bringing back a friend who had gone to the rainbow appeared in 2001 in America with the cat CC. She became the first cloned pet grown from a somatic cell of an adult. Four years later, the cloned greyhound Snoopy was born in South Korea, and off we went. Today, cloning has literally been put on stream: laboratories produce more than 1000 (!) dogs and cats annually.



In the photo is CC. In English, this is an abbreviation for the word "CopyCat". Unlike Dolly the sheep, who died quite young, this cat lived for 18 years!

To get a complete copy of your pet, you will have to pay a tidy sum and wait 5-7 months. But people who have just lost their pet are ready to pay and wait as long as it takes to hug their furry friend again. Money and time are nothing compared to the joy of a second chance to be together. But is everything so rosy? If you dig deeper and figure out how exactly clones are made, you will discover an unpleasant truth.



Ctrl C + Ctrl V.

Now all dogs and cats are cloned using somatic cells, that is, just like Dolly the sheep. They take blood or a piece of skin from the animal, which is then used for work. This is the first, simplest stage of creating a copy. DNA is extracted from an "adult" skin/blood cell. This is a universal genetic code, one might say, an instruction, according to which a clone will then be created.



Keep a bag of bags away from this army of clones!

At the second stage, a female of the same species as the clone is stimulated to superovulate - multiple maturation of eggs. In the laboratory, the mother's DNA is removed from the resulting eggs. This creates an empty shell-container. The genetic material of the animal that needs to be cloned is introduced into it. The combined cells are grown in a test tube for a couple of days, and the division process begins. The egg needs to "accept" the foreign DNA. And then the third, most difficult stage begins.



This is the first cloned kitten from China named Garlic. On the left is the donor, on the right is the clone.

The future surrogate mother is implanted with several pre-prepared eggs. Not all of them take root, because the embryos are, in fact, completely foreign. Many puppies and kittens die during pregnancy, others - go to the rainbow immediately after birth. So that you understand how scary it all is, let's look at a living example - that very greyhound Snoopy from Korea. To create it, 1095 embryos were created. They were implanted into 123 surrogate females, but only 3 (!) of them became pregnant. One of them had a miscarriage, and the other two gave birth to one puppy each. In the end, only one Snoopy survived.



On the left is the cell donor, in the middle is Snoopy, and on the right is his surrogate mother, a Labrador.

Today, the number of unsuccessful experiments and dead embryos has become slightly lower. In 2017, for example, there were 94 embryos in 3 pregnancies and, as a result, only 4 puppies were born. But even this is catastrophically small! It turns out that the success rate in cloning is from 0.2 to 5%. But the most important thing is that you will never get an exact copy of the cloned animal. Yes, from the point of view of the genetic code, it will be identical to your pet. The appearance and color will match (and not always exactly). But the character, skills and favorite habits of a deceased friend are never inherited. His memory and your friendship will not be passed on to another animal. As a result, the clone may be the complete opposite. It will be similar to your pet only genetically, they will have the same DNA, but in fact it will be a completely different dog/ cat.



Sometimes clones do not even look the same! In the photo, CC and the cat whose clone she is.

Yes, cloning may be the only option for saving endangered species. Cloning may also be justified to increase the number of highly valuable breeding animals that improve the entire population. But how correct is it to use this genetic machine to console the grieving? Write your opinion in the comments.