This wolf has a dog mother!Why does the world's first cloned Arctic wolf attract attention?

The world's first cloning Arctic wolf was born in Beijing, which is a hundred days of cloning technology to protect rare species. Why is the mother who gave birth to the Arctic wolf?

Written article/Reporter Zhao Tianyu

▲ Sahuan rolled his bones, what does the world's first cloned Arctic wolf look like?

On September 19, the world's first cloning Arctic Wolf Press Conference was held in Beijing Wild Zoo. The reporter learned from the press conference that on June 10 this year, the world's first cloned Arctic wolf was born in Beijing, which was born in Beijing. In addition, the second cloned Arctic (male) wolf will also be born recently.

The success of the clone wolf this time means that the technology of the clone dog platform cloning Arctic wolf has strong practical application value. It is also a commercial clone technology. Essence

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Big dog "produce" Arctic wolf

The Arctic Wolf, also known as the White Wolf, is a gray wolf subspecies under the genus dogs, distributed in northern Eurasia, northern Canada, and northern Greenland. It is one of the world's endangered animals and was included in the "IUCN" in the "IUCN" in 2012.

Dai Rui, general manager of Harbin Polar Park, introduced that the mother of the clone Arctic wolf from the Konzo Polaris wolf comes from the wild Arctic wolf "Maya" introduced 15 years ago, " Maya has not been able to reproduce offspring under the intervention of assisted reproductive technology, and cloning technology has become a new hope for continuous species reproduction. "

In 2020, Harbin Poor Park signed a cooperation agreement with Beijing Hino Valley Biotechnology Company, which was the first commercial pet clone company with completely independent intellectual property rights in China. And establish a commercialization technology platform for dog cloning.

▲ Wild Arctic Wolf Picture

Why choose a cord technology platform cloning Arctic wolf? This is because the number of chromosomes of dogs and wolves is 39 pairs, and the genes of the two are extremely similar, and there is no reproductive isolation, which has created a lot of convenient conditions for cloning. But on the other hand, after tens of millions of years, the wolf and dogs have formed a large difference in terms of living habits and figure appearance, and it is not easy to use cloned dog technology clone wolf.

"We treat ovarian mother cells and nuclear treatment, and then inject the supply cells to the ovulation clearance of nuclear eggs." Talking about the technical path of the cloning wolf Zhao Jianping said that the nucleus of the body and the oocytes of the oocyst of the nucleus re -construct a new embryo, transplanting the activated clone embryo into the uterus of the Big dog to conceive.

Compared with other dog species, it is the best choice for experimental dogs and surrogacy dogs. After two years of research overcome, on June 10, 2022, Big dogs gave birth to a healthy Arctic wolf cub, and the world's first cloned Arctic Wolf was officially born in Beijing.

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Some endangered animals are included in the scope of research

The "Earth Life Report 2020" released by the World Nature Foundation (WWF) shows that the number of monitored mammals, birds, fish, crawled animals and amphibians occur from 1970 to 2016, Fall, Latin America and Caribbean are the most affected areas in the world, and the number of wild animals has decreased by 94%.

In the past, the establishment of natural reserves, domestication and reproduction, and implementation of projects were proven to be effective paths. Today, with the development of genetic technology, cloning technology provides a brand new possibility for saving endangered species. It provides a good entry point for the protection of endangered wildlife, and has made important contributions to the protection of biodiversity and the recovery of endangered species.

▲ The world's first body cell cloning Arctic wolf. (Picture source: Beijing Hino Valley)

As a cutting -edge breeding method, animal cloning technology is applied to different fields. It is important in pet cloning, working dog cloning, animal husbandry (cattle, pigs, horses, etc.), heterogeneous animal cloning, endangered animal protection, etc. The role. At the same time, through gene editing and other technologies, animals become better in some ways. For example, Spanish scientists successfully cloned in 2003 to the extinction of the extinct Boka wild goats; in February 2021, American scientists used the frozen cells of a long dead animal animal to successfully cloned to the endangered black -footed Itachi; many national scientists also I have been trying a cloning mammoth to resurrect this "huge creature.

▲ Press conference site

Zhao Jianping revealed that Zhao Jianping revealed that on the basis of the clone of dogs and cats, the company hopes to use the accumulated biotechnology and gene editing technology to carry out more cloning and species protection of endangered species. Entering the scope of the company's technical team experimental argument, "like snow leopard, cloud leopard, golden cat, etc. are all national first -class protection animals, and the number of populations is scarce. benefit."

The company also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Beijing Wild Zoo to make full use of the advantages of both parties to launch the rare, endangered wildlife gene seed preservation, wild animal identification, wildlife protection, wildlife group research, and clone technology applications, popularization of popularization In -depth cooperation in knowledge lectures.

▲ Press conference site (picture source: Science and Technology Daily)

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Still need to face ethical and technical challenges

"Calleng technology provides a good entry point for the protection of endangered wildlife, which has contributed to the protection of biodiversity." Chang He Zhengming said that cloning technology has been released for many years, and its application level is very wide. The world's first cloned Arctic wolf is a milestone event.

Lai Liangri, a researcher at the Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, also believes that it is different from the breeding methods of natural reproduction, especially for animals that are more difficult to extract germ cells. Callery technology is an effective way to protect gene diversity and improve the number of populations.

But another significant fact is that although cloning technology has been overcome and mastered by many biological scientists, different species have their own reproductive physiological characteristics. Animals cloned, especially endangered wildlife clones, still need to face many ethical and technical challenges.

▲ In 1997, scientists cloned the sheep Dolly. Many scientists have since joined the field of cloning technology since then

At the technical level, one of the main difficulties of cloned animals is how to obtain mature oocytes and resume embryos. Taking cloned dogs and cloned cats as an example, dogs have a special reproductive physiological structure and are not regulated by hormones. They accurately judge the maturity time of ovarian parent cells and difficulty obtaining oocytes. The skin tissue of the cat's apoptosis is relatively fast, and the death time of more than 3 days has basically lost the meaning of extraction.

The success rate is also a major problem that exists in cloning technology. Each minor error in the operation may lead to the failure of the final experiment. Like cloned sheep, it was born after more than 200 trials. The giant panda cloned in my country has not yet made progress because of the low success rate.

Ethics is also the focus of cloned animals. Although not as big as cloned people, there are also some problems. For example, will the cloning process harm animals? Does cloned animal cause biological diversity and environmental problems during use? The animal welfare problem of the cloned animal itself and so on.

In this regard, He Zhengming said that there is still a big difference between experimental animals and wild animals. How to make cloned animals adapt to the wild environment is worth thinking about, and improving the breeding ability of cloned animals is also one of the focus of scientific research in the future. However, he also pointed out that "commercial companies participating in endangered wildlife protection and the cloning of species such as Arctic Wolf have stated that the company's great role in promoting scientific and technological innovation is worthy of affirmation and praise."

Produced: Popular Science Central Kitchen

Producer: Beijing Science and Technology News | Beike Media

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