Researchers in Japan have reported a new CRISPR-based technique that can convert male mouse embryos into female ones by removing the Y chromosome. The resulting animals are genetically identical to the original males except for the missing Y chromosome, a development that one of the lead scientists described as feeling like science fiction.
Takashi Ishiuchi, a reproductive biologist at the University of Yamanashi, and Shogo Matoba of the Riken BioResource Research Center led the work. They suggest the approach could aid conservation efforts, particularly for species with very few remaining individuals.
Cloning technology has a range of applications, from preserving desirable livestock traits to recreating deceased pets. The first mammal cloned from an adult cell, Dolly the sheep, was born in 1996 using a technique where the nucleus of an adult cell was transferred into an egg cell that had its own nucleus removed. This embryo was then carried by a surrogate.
While cloning pets is commercially available for tens of thousands of dollars, it has drawn criticism. Bioethicist Jessica Pierce has called the practice “the exploitation of the canine underclass.”
In conservation, cloning has been used to create animals from species near extinction, such as black-footed ferrets and Przewalski’s horse. In 2009, researchers in Spain cloned a Pyrenean ibex from cryopreserved skin cells, but the single offspring died minutes after birth due to a lung defect, marking the only known case of an animal going extinct twice.
Colossal Biosciences is working on using ancient genetic material to bring back species like the thylacine and woolly mammoth, though efforts so far have focused on modifying the genomes of modern relatives.
Human cloning remains technically possible but has not been performed, as far as is known. One biotech startup founder has proposed creating “brainless clones” that would lack a brain but contain organs for future transplants, an idea that was covered by MIT Technology Review in March.
Source: MIT Technology Review
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