Will it be possible to clone a mammoth?
Japanese scientist promises to revive mammoths in the next four years
NEWSru
Mammoths may reappear on Earth in just four years, scientists say. In their opinion, the revival of prehistoric animals will be possible thanks to the development of cloning technologies.
Attempts to revive mammoths were made back in the 1990s: nuclei were extracted from the cells of the skin and muscle tissue of a fossil found in the Siberian permafrost and they tried to multiply them. But these attempts were unsuccessful: the cells, after spending several thousand years in the permafrost, turned out to be unviable.
But in 2008, a Japanese scientist was able to clone a mouse using the cells of another mouse frozen for 16 years. The success was achieved by Dr. Teruhiko Wakayama from the Center for Developmental Biology "Riken". The case of Dr. Wakayama is now continued by Professor Akira Iritani of Kyoto University – he wants to take on organisms that have lain in permafrost for five thousand years.
"Now the technical difficulties have been overcome, and all we need is to get a good soft tissue sample from a frozen mammoth," he told the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph (Mammoth 'could be reborn in four years').
Iritani is going to isolate the nuclei in mammoth cells, and then choose relatively healthy ones from them. Then the nuclei will be placed in the eggs of a female African elephant, which will become a surrogate mother for a mammoth. According to the professor, it will take two years of work to conceive a fetus in the womb of an elephant, and it will take about 600 days to bear it.
In the summer, a Japanese scientist intends to visit Siberia to find mammoths in the permafrost to obtain samples of skin tissue. To find suitable cells, a piece of skin with an area of 3 sq. cm is enough. If the professor does not find the necessary samples on his own, he will ask for assistance from his Russian colleagues.
"The probability of success in cloning animals was very low until recently, but now it is about 30%," the scientist said. "I think we have a considerable chance of success, and in 4-5 years it will be possible to produce a healthy mammoth," he believes.
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14.01.2011