Cloning

Question 1

What is a clone?

Answer 1

An individual that is genetically identical to another/

Question 2

What are the mechanisms of cloning?

Answer 2

Natural, embryo splitting, reprogramming somatic cells and nuclear transfer

Question 3

How does cloning occur naturally?

Answer 3

By asexual reproduction, or if blastomere in two cell embryo splits naturally resulting in monozygotic twins

Question 4

How does cloning occur by embryo splitting?

Answer 4

artificially splitting the embryo into two at early cell stages

Question 5

How are somatic cells reprogrammed for cloning?

Answer 5

Differentiation may be reversible, e.g. in carrots, root cells can be tricked into forming a new plant that is a clone of the original one

Question 6

What is Somatic cell nuclear transfer(SCNT)?

Answer 6

A lab technique for creating an viable embryo with an egg cell and a body cell, DNA from cell combined with fertilised egg that has been enucleated

Question 7

Why is SCNT controversial?

Answer 7

Invasive and many technical problems. Also may be unethical

Question 8

What two factors allow cloning by nuclear transfer?

Answer 8

Nucleus of every somatic cell contains a complete copy of individual genes and a fertilised egg is totipotent

Question 9

Who cloned the first mammals?

Answer 9

Wilmut and Campbell in 1995, cloned sheep from cultured differentiated cells

Question 10

When was dolly the sheep born and how did they achieve this?

Answer 10

In 1996, deprived adult sheep mammary gland cells of growth factor to arrest their development. These cells were fused with enucleated eggs, stimulated and transplanted to a surrogate

Question 11

What are transgenic organisms?

Answer 11

Contains genetic material into which DNA from another unrelated organism has been inserted

Question 12

Why did Wilmut and Campbell engineer a transgenic flock of sheep?

Answer 12

Goal was to create a flock that could produce therapeutically useful proteins, 7 lambs were born and 3 contained the transgender. One contained Human Factor IX, a cold clotting agent used for treating haemophilia

Question 13

What are the potential uses of cloning?

Answer 13

Developmental research, using clones as controls
Conservation
Cloning of elite livestock
Disease resistant farming
Assisted reproductive techniques
Therapeutic cloning

Question 14

Why is it useful to pair cloning with genetic engineering?

Answer 14

Pharming

Xenotransplantation

Question 15

What is xenotransplantation?

Answer 15

the process of grafting or transplanting organs or organ tissue between members of different species

Question 16

What is Pharming?

Answer 16

Technology used to alter an animals own DNA

Question 17

How is cloning used in conservation?

Answer 17

Can help threatened species, and has even brought a small number back from extinction

Question 18

What are the problems with cloning for conservation?

Answer 18

How can you decide to clone one species over another, and it doesn’t address the reasons for species extinction in the first place

Question 19

What is a common misconception cloning?

Answer 19

Doest bring back a loved one, they are only DNA clones, not cytoplasmic ones, have a mutations of their own, as well as being influenced form the environment

Question 20

What are the problems with cloning?

Answer 20

Ageing - telomeres get shorter
Large foetus syndrome
Low success rate
Lack of genetic variation
In human cloning may be phycological problems

Question 21

What happens to stem cells when given vitamin A derivatives?

Answer 21

Form nerve cells

Question 22

How could they use stem cells to treat Parkinson’s disease?

Answer 22

dopamine producing cells in the brain die slowly in Parkinson’s patients, embryonic stem cells can be induced to produce dopamine in rates brain, next step is to develop system in humans

Question 23

What are the moral/ethical problems with cloning?

Answer 23

Is it right to clone a human/animal?
is it right to clone for therapeutic purposes?
Issues surrounding the use of embryo cells