The gene of the marsupial wolf came to life after 100 years
Tasmanian tiger gene lives again – Nature News, 20.05.08
Genes from hundred-year-old alcoholic samples of the extinct marsupial wolf, being implanted in mouse embryos, began to perform a biological function normally, according to a team of American and Australian researchers in an article in the journal PLoS One.
The marsupial wolf (marsupial tiger, Tasmanian wolf, thylacine, Thylacinus cynocephalus), which was found in historical times only in Tasmania, has been considered exterminated since the last individual died in the zoo in 1936.
Some thylacine remains have been preserved: for example, cubs extracted from the bags of adults and pickled about a hundred years ago. Andrew Pask from the University of Melbourne and his colleagues took tissue samples from the cubs, as well as from the skin of another thylacine that got into the museum around the same time. They extracted DNA from these samples.
In the picture: (a) – a young thylacine at the Hobart Zoo, 1928; (b) – one of the cubs whose DNA was used in the experiment; (c) – a thylacine skull in comparison with the skull of a domestic dog (d). Image from the article Pask et al.
From DNA, the researchers isolated an enhancer (a section of DNA that enhances the expression of a certain gene) of the Col2a1 gene, which is responsible for the development of cartilage and bones. This enhancer replaced the corresponding section of DNA in mouse embryos.
Embryos with altered DNA have developed normally, their cartilage and bones have grown in the usual way.
This is the first time that scientists have managed to force the DNA of an extinct animal to perform its biological function normally in the body of another animal.
Researchers urge to treat success with caution: even such a successful transplant is unlikely to resurrect thylacine: there are still too many differences between organisms. Nevertheless, the new method may allow "live" study of the genetic features of extinct animals.