Cloning from adult cells at issue

2002/03/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Genetika

Some cloning studies have managed to reprogram adult cell DNA and develop the embryo. That was, for example, Dolly's case. However, researchers at the Cambridge Whitehead Institute have doubted that the starting point of these clones were adult cells. According to them, these embryos or animals were due to special stem cells that were mixed with adult cells.

To demonstrate this hypothesis, mice have been cloned from adult B and T lymphocytes. In fact, these cells contain characteristic genetic marks that could be detected in embryos from them. Thus, after 1,000 attempts 21 mice were born. Consequently, they have shown that cloned beings can be obtained from adult cells, but the result has been so negative that they do not believe that all cloned animals have actually been obtained from adult cells.