Cloning

• Clones are genetically identical individuals produced naturally by asexual reproduction.However clines can be made artificially
• We can clone

  • plants- using cuttings or tissue culture
  • animals-embryo transplants and adult cell cloning
• Cuttings

  • good parent plants are used as a source of cuttings
  • to take a cutting a branch is cut of from the parent.Hormones are then used to encourage the roots to grow and then the cutting is planted
  • planting cuttings produce clones of the parent plant
  • this allows a large number of plants with favourable characteristics to be produces quickly and cheaply
• Tissue culture

  • small groups of cells are extracted from a plant and placed in a growth medium(petri dish with plant food in)
  • division if these cells will eventually result in The formation of the clone of the parent plant
  • the advantages are that it is quick, space efficient and time independent
  • this technique is important for commercial use in nurseries and the preservation of rare species
  • must be a very sterile environment
• Embryo transplant

  • developing embryos can be split into smaller groups of cells before differentiation to give many smaller and identical embryos which can then be put into host mothers
  • a classic example would be a farmer fertilising egg cells produced by his best cow with sperm taken from his prize bull.the farmer would split the result embryo And implant the clones into women’s of other cows
• Adult cell cloning

  • take a fertilised egg and remove its nucleus
  • the egg cell is then injected with the nucleus from an adult body cell belonging to the animal which is to be cloned
  • an electric shock is given to the egg cell to stimulate it to divide
  • mince the embryo has grown bigger into a larger ball of cells it is then implanted into a surrogate mother
  • the embryo will continue to develop in the womb of the surrogate