Cloning A Polo Horse
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Every now and then, and article about cloning pops up in my news feed. Most recently, there has been controversy regarding cloned polo ponies taking the field in Argentina. Breeders of polo ponies have been enthusiastic adopters of techniques like embryo transfer so that top polo pony mares can stay in competition while their offspring grows inside other mares. Embryo transfer doesn’t mess with the animal’s DNA even though the embryo itself starts in a little glass dish. But the each embryo will have a unique set of DNA, and aren’t carbon copies.
Cloning does provide a sort of carbon copy however. Normally a mare’s egg will contain one set of genes. The stallion then provides the second set, and the offspring becomes a mix of the two. But the cloning process starts with taking a tissue sample from the horse to be cloned - and that could be another mare, stallion or gelding. And the nucleus, containing the genes from a female’s egg is removed. This ‘donor’ egg could come from any mare. It doesn’t matter the breed, bloodline or anything else, because the coding is entirely removed. The removed genes are replaced with cells extracted from the tissue sample that contain two sets of genes. This means that all of the genetic information within the egg is from one horse. If all goes well, the egg and cells will bind together and the egg will begin to divide as normal. After spending a bit more time growing in culture, the embryo can be planted into a surrogate mare. The resulting foal will then be an identical genetic copy of the donor horse.
There are some benefits to the process that can’t be achieved by normal breeding. The undiluted DNA of a horse can be kept - theoretically forever. DNA from any horse, mare, stallion, or gelding can be replicated. This means that a gelding could sire many offspring, and a mare could produce many more identical offspring - making a mare as prolific as a breeding stallion.
And there are of course risks to cloning. It’s expensive of course, and eggs and DNA don’t always meld easily. Cloned animals tend to be born large, and can have enlarged organs which can lead to health problems immediately or later in life. Genes change as an animal ages, and scientists don’t know how this will affect a cloned animal’s development or lifespan.
The Thoroughbred stallion Storm Cat died in 2013, but tissue and blood samples were preserved. There is currently one living Storm Cat clone (the other was euthanized after breaking a leg). Potentially, once mature enough for breeding, he will be used to produce foals from eggs harvested from top polo mares, including one that has already been cloned several times.
While the polo world may have embraced cloning, other breeds and registries have not. The clone of a top American Quarter Horse mare, Lynx Melody has been the subject of a lawsuit against the American Quarter Horse Association. The AQHA is resolutely against allowing clones into the registry. But the owners insisted that Lynx Melody Too should be allowed into the registry. Cloned Thoroughbreds are not allowed to race. U.S. Trotting Assn and the Arabian Horse Association are in support of the AQHA’s stand.
Cloned horses are competing in many sports, but breed registries are less accepting. This is a relatively new technology, and there are still a lot of questions to be answered. Would you have a horse (or other pet) cloned? What do you think?
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http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/cloning/cloningrisks/
http://www.viagen.com/benefits/ |
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