Scientists were able to clone a mouse from a drop of blood that could live a full life-span and even produce babies.
The blood was taken from the tail of a female mouse, 600 "copies" were produced from this one little drop, the BBC reported. In the past, mice have been cloned from white blood cells found in the lymph nodes and liver. This new study tested if it would be possible to clone a mouse using circulating blood samples.
The Riken BioResource Center team used a process known as somatic cell nuclear transfer to clone the cells. The process involves "transferring the nucleus from an adult body cell - such as a blood or skin cell - into an unfertilized egg that has had its nucleus removed."
The process "demonstrated for the first time that mice could be cloned using the nuclei of peripheral blood cells," the researchers wrote in the journal Biology of Reproduction. The researchers added the cells could be used immediately after collection, and improved the current system since the animals would not have to be euthanized in the process.
"This technique would be applicable for generating genetic copies of invaluable strains of mice, which cannot be preserved by other assisted reproductive techniques such as conventional in vitro fertilisation or intracytoplasmic sperm injection," they wrote.
Scientists have been cloning animals for years, and the process is only improving. A related institute was able to produce 600 mice from only 25 rounds of cloning. The project hopes to improve cloning so higher-quality animals can be produced for both farming and conservational purposes.
"The efficiency of cloning from these cell types was very good, suggesting that even a small drop of blood will contain sufficient numbers...this is helpful if the intention is to use cloning to propagate and expand numbers of rare or valuable types of individual or species," said Professor Robin Lovell-Badge of the MRC National Institute of Medical Research in London as a commentary on the study.
