Snuppy, the world’s first cloned dog, died in 2015, but his genetic legacy lives on. As the National Post reports, South Korean scientists recently reported in the journal Scientific Reports birth of three clone pups, all of which resemble a replica of the famous Afghan dog.
Those who lived through the 1990s may remember Dolly, the Scottish sheep that rose to fame as the first mammal to be mowed from an adult cell. After Dolly’s cloning in 1996, scientists were able to reproduce other animals, including cats, mice, cattle, and horses. But dog cloning first stopped scientists, Time reports, as their breeding season is limited and their eggs are difficult to hatch.
Eventually, researchers ended up using somatic cell nucleus (SCNT) to train a dog, the same method used to make Dolly. In the early 2000s, a team of South Korean scientists inserted DNA extracted from African dog skin cells into a dog’s egg from which the DNA was extracted. Split the egg, which produced several cloned embryos.
The scientists injected 1095 of these embryos into 123 dogs, a complete operation that resulted in just three pregnancies, according to NPR. Of these, Snuppy – named a combination of “puppy” and the initials of Seoul National University – was the only survivor.
Snuppy died of cancer in April 2015, just shortly after her 10th birthday. To mark his successful life, the same South Korean researchers decided to replenish using mesenchymal stem cells from the dog’s belly fat, which was picked up when he was five. This time, they transferred 94 reproduced embryos to seven dogs. Four clones were born later, although one of them died shortly after birth.
The tiny clones are now more than a year old, and researchers say they don’t think the pups are at risk of growing faster, nor are they more likely to diseases of other dogs. (Dolly died when she was just six years old, while cloned mice have also had a shorter lifespan.) Snuppy’s somber donor, Tai, lived just two years longer than Snuppy, dies at age 12, average lifespan of an Afghan dog.
Researchers say this new generation of Snuppys will bring new insights into the health and longevity of cloned animals. Meanwhile, in other animal cloning news, a Texas-based company called ViaGen Pets is now offering to breed human-loved pets, according to CBS Pittsburgh – a service that costs $ 50,000 cool for dogs.
[h/t National Post]