The clone mare and her mother. The mother donated the cell and carried the embryo. Source: Nature
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After scientists cloned sheep, mice, goats, rabbits, cats, pigs and mules, it was the horses' turn. Italian scientists report in the latest issue of the journal Nature that they succeeded in cloning a mare. According to them, the innovation is that the mare who donated the cell from which the foal developed, is also the one who carried her in her womb. That is, the mare sired a copy of herself.
During the cloning of the sheep "Dolly" - the first animal in the world to be cloned - a cell taken from the wall of a sheep's udder is merged with a sheep's egg from which the cell nucleus was extracted. The nucleus of the udder cell took over the egg and determined the course of its development into an embryo and finally into a lamb. Since then, scientists have cloned other animals using the same method.
The Italian scientists performed 513 experiments that resulted in the creation of 328 embryos. But at the end of the process only four pregnancies were left. Two of the mares miscarried about a month after the pregnancy and a third mare miscarried on day 187. One mare remained, carrying in her womb an embryo that developed from a skin cell taken from her and fused with a mare's egg whose nucleus was removed.
336 days after fertilization, on May 28, the foal "Promethea" was born in a natural birth. DNA tests verified that she is genetically identical to her surrogate mother who also conceived her.
Cloning expert - animals
Following Dolly's death
For information in Nature
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