CLONING IN ANIMALS
Cloning is an asexual organic method in which exact replica of something is produced. Many organisms produce clones naturally or artificially. Animal cloning takes place through asexual reproduction. Plant cloning occurs by cuttings, tissue culture etc. In biotechnology, clones of organisms or DNA fragments are produced.
How is Animal cloning done
There are two approaches to make an genetic copy of an organism in a lab which are artificial embryo twinning and somatic cellular nuclear transfer.
1. Artificial Embryo Twinning
Artificial embryo twinning is a quite low-tech approach to make clones.
An early embryo is separated into individual cells that will divide and develop for a short time in the petridish. The embryos are then located right into a surrogate mother, where they finish growing. Again, considering the fact that all of the embryos came from the equal fertilized egg, they’re genetically similar.
2. Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer
Somatic cellular nuclear transfer (SCNT), also known as nuclear transfer. It involves changing the nucleus of an unfertilised egg with the nucleus from a distinctive cell. The replacement nucleus can come from an embryo, however if it comes from an person mobile, it’s far called adult cellular cloning.
Dolly the sheep cloning
Dolly the sheep was the primary mammal to be cloned the use of adult cell cloning :
An egg cell turned into removed from the ovary of an person lady sheep, and its nucleus eliminated.
The nucleus from an udder cell of a donor sheep changed into inserted into the empty egg cellular.
The fused cell then began to develop commonly, the use of genetic data from the donated DNA.
Before the dividing cells became specialised, the embryo become implanted into the uterus of a foster mom sheep. The end result turned into Dolly, genetically equal to the donor sheep.
Animal Cloning Pros and Cons
Advantages of animal cloning
1. Study diseases
While some are concerned about animal cloning, others support it. Cloning animals has many advantages. First of all, it will allow scientists to better care for and study diseases in the future. Diseases become resistant when they are treated with the same DNA from a disease-free specimen.
2. Conservation of animals
Because of animal cloning, there are now certain species in zoos. If one species becomes immune to a treatment, then the other will be able to take its place. This can help to prevent the extinction of a species. Animal cloning could potentially do just that.
There are animal cloning clinics all over the United States with staff members who are willing to work with the public to help them create new species. The reason that these clinics have been set up is due to conservation issues. Animals like dogs and cats are becoming extinct at an alarming rate due to habitat loss and human activities.
3. Mass extinction avoided
By bringing back the same species to life through cloning, we hope to avoid another mass extinction event like the one that occurred with the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. By creating cloned animals, we can avoid causing these types of extinctions again. By creating healthy offspring, we can continue the practice of producing these animals without causing harmful problems in the future. In fact, we can create more of these cloned animals than there are animals alive in the world today.
4. Clone an animal without it being born
Another pros of animal cloning is that nuclear transfer offers a way to clone an animal without it being born. This is usually used in the pharmaceutical and research fields. With nuclear transfer, an egg is combined with a sperm from a living donor animal. Once the nucleus from the egg is combined with the nucleus from the donor animal, the nucleus from the egg is inserted into a zygote. The resulting child is then born with all of its natural skills and DNA.
5. Create Stem Cells
This is the biggest reason that some choose not to use this method for their research. Animal cloning could offer a way to create stem cells. Stem cells are the specialized cells found in the human body that help to repair tissue damage, such as a broken bone. Although stem cells are generally considered to be safe for transplant purposes, there have been a number of accidents where the stem cells from an animal source were mixed with donated blood and other blood products. Since the safety of stem cells has not been conclusively established, it is possible that using this procedure for animal cloning could result in a number of problems, including the transfer of germs and infectious diseases.
6. Using organs of deceased animal
Another advantage to cloning is that we don’t have to wait for an animal to die before we clone it. With conventional breeding, we often have to wait for the animal to die before we clone it. We can sometimes use the organs from the deceased animal. Unfortunately, these often have problems. It’s not guaranteed that the animal will still have a long and healthy life after being cloned.
Disadvantages of animal cloning
1. Genetic defect passed to next generations
The disadvantages of reproductive cloning are also great. Since each generation will be entirely different from the last, there is every chance that a new offspring will have a genetic defect that will be passed on to humans. This could mean that a large part of the world’s human population will be infected with genetic diseases. For instance, humans could become afflicted with diabetes through the manipulation of the genome of a virus which infects cattle.
2. Animals suffer the most
The most obvious disadvantages of animal cloning stem from the fact that an animal is removed from its natural environment and put in a situation that it may not be able to deal with. It could be that the animal suffers from a disease that it is immune to in its natural environment. If the scientist can successfully clone the animal and then artificially pass the disease on to an unaffected sheep, it is possible that the animal could become ill. Even though there are no real disadvantages to this method, this could easily sway some people. For instance, if the animal lived for twenty years in a lab and then was put back in its natural environment, would it suffer from the disease, or simply be unaffected? If it were artificially inseminated, would the wife be able to have children again?
3. Process is very expensive
The major disadvantage of cloning is the amount of resources that would have to be expended to produce a sufficient number of clones. It can cost millions of dollars to clone a single animal. The advantages of this procedure include potentially producing thousands of clones with a high rate of success. The benefits may also include the ability to produce quality offspring without using a nucleus transfer method.
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