Pros And Cons Of Animal Cloning

Can we clone extinct ancient animals?

In 2011, a team of scientists from Japan, Russia and United States announced their intention to attempt a successful cloning of the Woolly Mammoth within the next 6 years (Lendon, 2011). To date, successful animal cloning attempts has been restricted to only current live animals of small to moderate size. To attempt cloning an animal that is extinct and of such huge stature definitely seems to be a tall order. This is truly a mammoth ambition that had divided scientists into two factions, the advocates and the sceptics. Advocates believe that technological advance would bring about ways for successful cloning of extinct animals while sceptics argue that it is an impossible feat. While this sounds like

This is where the issue of genome mismatch may come into play. The success rate of nuclear transfer may very well be limited by mitochondrial nuclear genome compatibility. Nuclear genome simply refers to the set of all genes inherited from our parents that code for the development and working of our body. Mitochondrial genome on the other hand, is located in mitochondrial found within cells and codes for proteins that are crucial for cellular respiration, providing the energy required for the daily workings of our body. Mitochondrial genome, unlike nuclear genome, is inherited only from the mother, more specifically, from the egg that contains the nucleus prior to fertilisation (Chial, H. & Craig, J., 2008). The nuclear genome injected into the egg during the cloning process may not be compatible to the mitochondrial genome naturally or due to modifications made to the nuclear genome. This is especially so if the nuclear genome and egg cell are obtained from different species. Incompatibility between genes due to mismatched nuclear and mitochondrial genome would mean that these genes are unable to work in tandem to allow cellular respiration. This may result in

The success they were referring to happened in 2003, when the extinct Pyrenean Ibex saw a short lived successful cloning attempt. We must however, note that the DNA used for cloning was obtained from the last live species before it died and officially went extinct in 2000. Among 439 of the ibex-goat cloned embryos created, only 57 were fit for implantation into the surrogate mother. Out of these 57 surrogate mothers, only 7 had pregnancies and only 1 resulted in live birth, which died after 7 minutes due to lung deformities believed to be attributed to the cloning process (Connor, 2009). If we are unable to produce a healthy clone from live tissues collected from live animals, what are our chances with extinct animals, like the Woolly Mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger or the Tyrannosaurus rex, where we do not even have their full genome or live