Topic 6 - Cloning

Question 1

Explain how plants can be cloned.

Answer 1

Tissue culture
- Take a group of plant cells
- Put them in a growth medium with hormones
- They grow quickly all year round and take up little space
Cuttings
- Take a small section of a plant
- Plant them in moist conditions

Question 2

Explain how animals can be cloned.

Answer 2

Take sperm cells from the best male and the egg cell from the best female.
Artificially fertilise the two.
The embryo then splits to form many unspecialised cells.
The embryos would then implanted into several females.
This would produce many genetically identical offspring.

Question 3

Explain how adult cells can be cloned.

Answer 3

Take an unfertilised egg from the same female.
Extract the nucleus from the unfertilised egg.
Take a nucleus of any human cell and insert it into the egg.
Stimulate cell division using an electric shock.
Plant the embryo into the womb of the same female.

Question 4

What is the purpose of an electric shock in the adult cell cloning process?

Answer 4

To stimulate cell division

Question 5

What are two advantages of cloning?

Answer 5

The study of animal cloning can lead to greater understanding of the development of the embryo, ageing and age disorders.
Preserving endangered species.

Question 6

What are three disadvantages of cloning?

Answer 6

Cloning reduces the gene pool so there are less resistant alleles to various diseases.
Cloning can also cause diseases like arthritis.
Humans may take advantage of this and clone themselves but this could lead to severe disabilities.