Cloning Animals

• Cloning animals by transplanting a cell nucleus

  • TAKE AN EGG CELL FROM A DONOR FEMALE AND REMOVE ITS NUCLEUS SO THAT YOU HAVE AN 'ENUCLEATED EGG CELL.
  • TAKE AN ADULT BODY CELL (E.G. SKIN CELL) FROM THE ORGANISM YOU WANT TO CLONE, AND REMOVE ITS NUCLEUS.
  • PUT THE NUCLEUS FROM THE ADULT BODY CELL INTO THE ENUCLEATED EGG CELL
  • STIMULATE THE CELL VIA A SMALL ELECTRIC SHOCK, IT WILL THEN ACT LIKE A ZYGOTE AND DIVIDE BY MITOSIS, FORMING AN EMBRYO
  • IMPLANT THE EMBRYO INTO THE UTERUS OF A SURROGATE MOTHER. IT WILL THEN DEVELOP INTO A FETUS AND BE BORN LIKE NORMAL
• Suggest three advantages of producing cows with desirable characteristics via embryo cloning, rather than via selective breeding.

  • All offspring are identical / no variation
  • It is faster
  • More offspring are produced 
  • There is no need for natural mating / no need to keep two parents
• Name the type of cell division that produces an embryo from an individual cell

  Mitosis

  Remember that meiosis produces gametes (sperm and egg cells), but mitosis is used for everything else, including any kind of growth, repair or development. 
• What is a transgenic organism?

  An organism with DNA from another species
• Cloning by embryo transplants

  An electric shock is given to the egg cell to stimulate it to divide. Once the embryo has grown into a larger ball of cells, it is implanted into a surrogate mother. The embryo (a clone of the original adult body cell) will continue to develop in the womb of the surrogate.