By Weston Paulik
What do the bucking bull Panhandle Slim, the cutting horse Tap O Lena and the show pig, Miss Pauline all have in common? If you said that there are exact genetic copies of them walking around right now you are correct, all of those animals have been cloned. I recently had the opportunity to attend a beef cattle ultrasound training course, and while I was there I got to meet a gentleman by the name of Dr. Brian Bruner. Dr. Bruner works for ViaGen in Austin Texas and he has assisted in cloning a large number of animals from lab rats to rodeo bulls. While we were eating lunch he discussed cloning, and I found out that it is growing in popularity with livestock producers. According to ViaGen the most commonly cloned animals are cattle, horses, hogs, dogs and cats.
The process of cloning actually sounds relatively simple on paper. According to Dr. Bruner the first step is to collect skin cells from the animal to be cloned. This can either be done by swabbing the tailhead or the inside of the animal’s ear. Next the lab will need to get an unfertilized egg; these are usually collected from meat processing companies. The egg will then have the nucleus removed and the donor animals DNA will be placed in the enucleated oocyte (an egg with no genetic material). Then a current of electricity will be passed through the egg which causes the outer membrane of the cells to fuse with the inner membrane of the egg, this process is known as electrofusion. Following this step the egg is incubated and an embryo will form. After incubation the embryo is transferred to a recipient animal and sixty days after the animal is born it is delivered to the owner. Bovance a partner with ViaGen had this picture that I felt was very helpful in showing the steps of cloning an animal.
According to Dr. Bruner there are several issues that are affecting the cloning industry. One big problem with cloning horses is the ban on horse slaughter. Right now ViaGen is having problems getting unfertilized eggs to place the skin cells in. They either have to wait for a horse to die of natural causes or import them from other countries such as Canada and Mexico. Another problem that cloning is facing is the idea that milk and meat from cloned animals is bad for you. According to a study by the Food and Drug Administration there is no evidence that cloned milk or meat is bad for you. However, according to ViaGen the cloning industry has agreed not to allow any products from cloned animals to enter the food supply for several years. The reason that Dr. Bruner was attending the ultrasound class was to learn to ultrasound cattle for rib-eye area, percentage of intramuscular fat, rump fat, and back fat to see if these values in the cloned animals are similar to the original animal. Another huge issue the cloning industry is facing is the ethics and fairness of showing cloned animals. For example if someone showed a steer one year and won with it, in theory they could continue showing that animal in the same show for as long as they wanted to. While the animal may have a slightly different appearance, genetically it is the same animal. According to Dr. Bruner this is quite a hot topic within the livestock genetics industry. In my opinion I see no problem with someone cloning a steer and showing it as a bull, or even showing it as a steer at a different show. I would disagree with showing an exact copy of the same steer at the same show every year though. Another problem with cloning is the high percentage of animals that require assistance giving birth to clones. According to Dr. Bruner only twenty percent of cloned animals are born without assistance, most clones require a Cesarean Section to be born.
I also learned from Dr. Bruner that while in theory cloned animals are only genetically similar many clones show similar “personality” traits. For example he told a story of a cow he cloned that would always stop at the exact same place in the alley leading up to the chute. It was not because she was spooked by something, because there were no shadows there and nothing hanging there. So when he ran all eight of the clones through the chute they all stopped in the same place and would not move. Another example is a horse that was cloned. The trainer worked out a trick with the original horse and after it died the owners wanted to clone it. When the trainer walked up to the clone for the first time he gave the horse its cue to do the trick and the clone did the exact same trick. While it has not been scientifically proven that cloned animals have the same “personality” traits, I thought it was interesting and worth including in my blog.
In closing cloned animals are a bigger part of the livestock industry than most people realize. While it may take a while to get the ethics and other issues in cloning ironed out, I believe it will become a large portion of the livestock industry. Science has shown that there is nothing dangerous about consuming meat or dairy products from clones. Maybe one day we will be eating meat from a cloned pig or drinking milk from a cloned cow.
References
Associated Press. "FDA: Food From Animal Clones Safe to Eat." Press release. ViaGen in the News. 31 Oct. 2003. ViaGen. 19 Sept. 2010 <http://www.viagen.com/news/fda-food-from-animal-clones-safe-to-eat/>.
Bovance. "Science." Bovance : : Advancing Genetic Opportunity. 19 Sept. 2010 <http://www.bovance.com/science.html>.
Bruner Phd, Brian. Personal interview. May 2010
ViaGen. "Equine." ViaGen The Cloning Company. 19 Sept. 2010 <http://www.viagen.com/benefits/equine/>.
ViaGen. "Porcine." ViaGen The Cloning Company. 19 Sept. 2010 <http://www.viagen.com/benefits/porcine/>.
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