Cloning

Question 1

What do potato plants use for asexual reproduction

They clone themselves

Answer 1

Tubers

Question 2

What do strawberry plants use for asexual reproduction

They clone themselves

Answer 2

Runners

Question 3

What method do horticulturists use to produce genetically identical plants

How is this done

Answer 3

Cloning by tissue culture

Select parent plant with desirable characteristics
Scrape off large number of small tissue into beakers with hormones and nutrients
Clones will grow, can be repeated

Question 4

Advantages of cloning of plants

Answer 4

Certain characteristics produced

Can be mass-produced, they may take long time to grow

Question 5

Disadvantages of cloning of plants

Answer 5

If plant becomes susceptible to disease or sensitive to change in environment, all will be affected
Reduction in genetic variation reduces potential for further selective breeding

Question 6

Why is cloning plants easier than animals

Answer 6

Many pant cells can differentiate or specialise but animal cells lose this ability as they age

Question 7

What technique was Dolly the sheep cloned by

Answer 7

Nuclear transfer/adult cell cloning

Question 8

What are two cloning techniques

Answer 8

Nuclear transfer/ adult cell cloning

Embryo transplantation

Question 9

Embryo transplantation is commonly used in cattle breeding

What is this process

Answer 9

Sperm collected from bull with desirable characteristics 🐮
Selected cow is artificially inseminated with bull sperm
Fertilised egg develops into an embryo which is removed from cow at early stage
In the lab the embryo is split into several clones
Each clone is transplanted into a surrogate mother cow

Question 10

Why will identical clones be successful when they are split from the same embryo

Answer 10

All the cells in the embryo are identical, they can differentiate too

Question 11

How could animals be used to help humans who need organ donors

Answer 11

Gene selected and isolated for human tissue
Inserted into animal embryo/egg cell
Replicate gene
Then cloned to produce a ready supply of organ donors

Question 12

What are concerns with animal organ donors

Answer 12

Infections may be passed

Ethical issues of animal rights and welfare

Question 13

Uses of cloning for humans and animals

Answer 13

Provide stem cells from cloned human embryos

Mass production of animals with desirable characteristics

Question 14

It is possible to clone humans to provide stem cells. It is illegal beyond 14 days as human clones would develop

What are the concerns about cloning humans

Answer 14

Unreliable, many clones wont survive
Cloned animals have limited life span and die early
Religious views say cloning is wrong
Experimenting on human embryos is controversial

Question 15

What is the process of nuclear transfer/adult cell cloning

Which parent is offspring a clone of

Answer 15

Nucleus taken from udder cell (male) and egg cell taken (female)
Nucleus inserted into egg cell with no nucleus, pulse of electricity makes embryo divide
Embryo placed into surrogate mother and foetus develops and born as normal

Offspring produced is clone of sheep that nucleus came from

Question 16

Risks of animal cloning

Answer 16

Cloning reduces genetic variation
Potential for accumulating inherited diseases
Animal welfare concerns the animals may not be as healthy or have long lives

Question 17

Benefits of animal cloning

Answer 17

Same characteristics of clones
Farmer could choose sex and timing of birth
Top quality Bulls and cows kept for gametes while younger animals used to birth the young

Question 18

Plants reproduce asexually

How do cells divide

Answer 18

By mitosis

Each new cell divides and develops a clone