C - Cloning

Question 1

What are the two ways we can clone plants?

Answer 1

Using cuttings or tissue culture

Question 2

What does taking cuttings involve when trying to clone a plant?

Answer 2

• They take a cutting from a good parent plant
• Then they plant them to create a genetically identical plant
- It is quick and cheap

Question 3

What does tissue culture involve?

Answer 3

• A few plant cells are put in growth medium with hormones
• Then they grow into new plants which are clones of their parent plant
- They can be grown quickly, in very little space and can be grown all year

Question 4

How can you make animal clones?

Answer 4

Using embryo transplants

Question 5

How do they do embryo transplants?

Answer 5

• The sperm cells are taken from the best male and the egg is taken from the best female.
• The embryo that develops is then split lots of times to make lots of clones.
• They are then implanted into the lots of the same species to create genetically identical babies.

Question 6

What does adult cell cloning involve?

Answer 6

• Taking an unfertilised egg cell and removing its genetic material
• a complete set of chromosomes from an adult body cell is inserted into the empty egg cell
• the egg cell is then stimulated by an electric shock which makes it divide
• when the embryo is a ball of cells, it is implanted into an adult female to grow a clone of the original adult body cell
- THIS IS HOW DOLLY WAS CREATED

Question 7

Name 2 disadvantages of cloning…

Answer 7

• There is less variation - so a reduced gene pool
• It’s possible clones might not be as healthy as normal ones e.g. Dolly had arthritis
• some people worry humans might be cloned in the future