Cloning of the World’s First Transgenic Dog
Posted on April 29, 2009 by Nancy Houser
With the world’s first transgenic dog not quite making the headlines yet, at a price of $155,000 Edgar and Nina Otto of Florida had purchased a cloned puppy from North California’s BioArts International, partner of the South Korea Biotech research firm, Sooam. South Korea has been in the dog cloning business again with their scientists using cloning techniques to engineer four beagles that glow red, in order to develop cures for human diseases. With all four puppies named “Ruppy” (combo of the words “ruby” and “puppy”), during the day they look like typical beagle puppies. The difference lies when they are under ultraviolet light with their nails and abdomens glowing red – appearing red even to the naked eye — hence, the bionic transgenic dog makes its first appearance!
Seoul National University Team Achievements
Professor Lee Byeong-chun of the Seoul National University in Seoul, South Korea, and also head of the team, is referring to their four beagles as “the world’s first transgenic dogs” whereas the term transgenic (considered a subset of genetically modified organism, GMO), refers to an organism which has inserted DNA originating from a different species. Carrying implanted fluorescent genes, he said to the Associated Press, “What is significant in this work is not the dogs expressing red colors but that we planted genes into them.”
Published in the Web site journal, “Genesis”, he and his team identified the dog as clones of a cell donor against a background of cloning fluorescent mice and pigs. What makes this experiment important is that it is the very first time that cloned dogs have been implanted with modified genes in a successful manner. It was developed through a process where the skin cells were taken from a beagle, placing inserted fluorescent genes into them. The cells were put into eggs before they were implanting them into a surrogate mother — consisting of a local mixed breed. On December 2007, six female puppies were born with four of them living, born through a cloning process which actually produces red glowing fluorescent protein. The experiment was considered a success as it demonstrated that it was now successful to insert genes with a “specific trait”, leading to the implantation of other non-fluorescent genes to treat specific diseases.
Diseases Treated With Genes from the Cloned Puppies
Already the South Korea experiment has allowed the scientists to begin implanting human disease-related genes through the process of dog cloning. One of the new treatments is for genetic diseases for Parkinson’s with research presently under way. “We can appraise this is a step forward” toward finding cures for human diseases, said veterinary professor Kong Il-keun at South Korea’s Gyeongsang National University. “What is important now is on what specific diseases (Lee’s team) will focus on.”
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