Without donor eggs
Scientists have received two embryos of white rhinos
An international group of scientists and nature conservationists managed to obtain two embryos of the endangered Northern white rhino, according to a press release published on the website of the Avantea laboratory (Northern White Rhino Eggs Successfully Fertilized at Avantea's laboratories - VM).
In March 2018, the last male northern white rhino named Sudan died in Kenya at the age of 45. Kenyan reserve Ol Pejeta reported that after the death of the Sudan rhinoceros, only two females of this species remained on the planet: his daughter Najin and granddaughter Fatu.
"Using eggs collected from the two remaining females and frozen sperm from deceased males, they (scientists) successfully created two northern white rhino embryos," the document says.
(A year ago, the technique was worked out with the help of donor eggs of southern white rhinoceros females and unfrozen sperm cells of Sudan. Four embryos were used to obtain stem cell cultures, three embryos were cryopreserved for subsequent implantation to female recipients - VM.)
According to a press release, on August 22, scientists managed to collect eggs from Najin and Fatu, after which they were delivered to the Avantea laboratory in the city of Cremona in northern Italy. Professor Cesare Galli and his team fertilized eggs using the sperm of Suni and South individuals. The embryos were obtained by in vitro fertilization.
"We brought ten oocytes from Kenya, five from each female. After incubation, seven of them matured and were ready for fertilization (four eggs from Fatu and three from Najin)," Galli's words are quoted in the report.
According to him, Fatu's eggs were connected to Suni's sperm, and Najin's eggs were connected to Satu's sperm using intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). After ten days of the incubation period, two Fatu eggs developed into viable embryos.
The white rhinoceros is the largest representative of rhinos and the second largest animal after the elephant living on land. This species of rhinoceros is divided into two subspecies: southern and northern. Southern white rhinos live in South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique and are also endangered due to poaching widespread in the region.
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