A team of Japanese researchers have reported success cloning world’s first fourth generation pig at Tokyo Meiji University.
The findings will solve the complexities involved in successive generation cloning. Scientists believed that genetic material in the nucleus of the donor cell degraded with each successive generation. Now, scientists have assured that this success in cloning will help in other cloning and medical researches.
Until now, cloning rate has been low and less efficient.
Cloning pig has become a scientific goal because pig organs hold the promise of possibly alleviating the shortage of human organs available for transplantation. Pig may not be genetically similar to humans, but functions of the organs are very similar.
However, the issue of using pig organs in humans is controversial, as some scientists had reported some viruses unique to pig that could infect human cell.
Akira Onishi, a geneticist with the government-affiliated Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries Research Council said that the results might prove important to breeders of other large animals, such as racehorses or bulls, looking for ways to keep a prized animal in the gene pool.
With this successful cloning, researchers hope to clone large mammals for multiple generations without any loss of genetic material.
Image Credit: Crystalinks
Via: Yahoo!
