Cloned dogs: 2005-20016
Snoopy, the first cloned dog
Alexandra Nechaeva, "Elements"
In the modern world, perhaps, it is difficult to find a person who has not heard anything about cloning and does not understand its essence at least at the everyday level, without going into genetic details. Of course, when the word "cloning" is mentioned, the first thing everyone remembers is Dolly the sheep. After her, many more animals were inscribed in the biological chronicle, including fish and amphibians, even camels and coyotes. But now we will talk about a person's best friend – a dog.
On April 24, 2005, Snoopy (English "Snuppy": from "Seoul National University" and "puppy" – "puppy"), a puppy of the Afghan hound breed, was born at Seoul National University. Under the guidance of Professor Woo Seok-hwan, 1,095 cloned embryos were created, which were then implanted into 123 "surrogate mothers." Confirmation of pregnancy was obtained from only three of them, and one of the pregnancies ended in miscarriage. Of the two puppies born, one died of pneumonia at the age of three months, and the second – the same Snoopy – boasts a fairly busy life: in 2008, he became a happy father of nine puppies (there were ten of them in the litter, but one died almost immediately).
Stages of cloning Snoopy. Photos from the website news.bbc.co.uk
It was not possible to clone a dog for a long time because of the problems of the development of a dog embryo in artificial conditions. The developed and viable embryos were obtained after the egg was allowed to mature to the desired stage in the native organism before its extraction. And the general logic of the processes in cloning dogs is the same as in the case of other animals: the nucleus is removed from the egg, the necessary genetic material of the somatic cell is injected, and then the development of the "fabricated" embryo is stimulated. The donor of the genetic material, which means that a three-year-old male Afghan greyhound Tai (Tai), whose DNA was isolated from the skin cells of the ear, became the "original" for Snoopy himself. The egg was taken from a half-breed dog, and a female Labrador became a surrogate mother for the puppy.
Comparison of Snoopy (left) and his "father" Ty (right) at the age of one day,
two, three, four and five weeks. Photos from the website dogforums.com
However, life teaches us to treat information about any discoveries critically. Therefore, we cannot fail to mention one detail. After experimenting with dogs, Professor Woo Seok-hwan switched to working with human embryos. His research made a lot of noise, first with its success and opening opportunities, and then with a scandal related to the possible falsification of experimental results and questionable methodology. Naturally, after that, the cloning of Snoopy was also questioned. However, in 2006, the journal Nature published the results of an independent examination that confirmed that Snoopy was indeed a clone, and for both groups of markers used: microsatellite and mitochondrial.
Today, cloning dogs is still, of course, not an everyday occurrence, but it is no longer something unique. But why do you need to clone someone at all? In addition to the understandable desire of scientists to "resurrect" extinct species in this way (even though they may lead to unpredictable consequences), the study of cloning mechanisms should help find ways to treat many diseases. Despite the apparent difference between a human and a dog, the basics of diseases and their mechanisms are similar in many ways, so there are very high hopes for cloning animals now.
But there is also a more mundane side of the issue, which became relevant after the appearance of Snoopy. Now there is a Sooam Biotech Research foundation in South Korea, offering to clone any dog for a round sum (about $ 100,000). As of May 2016, they have already cloned more than 700 dogs. By the way, this industry is developing in South Korea, and not, say, in the United States, precisely because there are lower ethical criteria for pets. And the popularity of dog cloning continues to gain momentum. Recently, BNN, one of the companies of the public broadcasting system in the Netherlands, known for its extraordinary approach to work, announced the order of a clone in South Korea specifically for a new TV show in order to draw attention to cloning issues, and a 12-year-old bulldog named Joep was chosen for this.
Naturally, cloning of dogs is also criticized from an ethical point of view, since when creating a copy of a beloved dog by order, some puppies are killed (after all, one was ordered, and two could have been born), they also appeal to the latent probability of premature aging of clones, criticize the unwillingness of customers to take an animal from a shelter, etc. In addition, many kennel owners believe that the very idea of cloning dogs for non-scientific purposes goes against the essence of kennels and can in no way contribute to the improvement of a breed or a specific individual.
Clone and his prototype: Snoopy (right) and Ty at different ages.
In the left picture, Snoopy is 67 days old. Photo from the article by Woo Suk Hwang et al., 2005,
Dogs cloned from adult somatic cells and from the site dogforums.com
In any case, a wave of criticism is unlikely to stop those who are willing to pay a lot of money to recreate a beloved pet.
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15.11.2016