Acroplex
09-17-2002, 12:02 AM
Calf cloned using cells from a side of beef
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/cloning/cloning.jsp?id=23412200
A COW has been cloned using cells taken from a side of beef, 48 hours after slaughter. This might mean ranchers could select their breeding stock after they 've seen the quality of meat it will produce -though the clones themselves would not be eaten.
The calf was born on 22 April, say scientists at the University of Georgia and agricultural biotechnology company ProLinia, based in Athens, Georgia. The team was headed by Steven Stice, a Georgia University researcher who was among the first to produce cloned cows.
The calf was cloned from a kidney cell taken from a side of beef in a local slaughterhouse. This isn 't the first time that cells from a dead animal have been used in cloning -last year, scientists used genes from two dead ewes to recreate a rare mouflon sheep. But ProLinia president Mike Wanner says the company didn 't change anything about the way the beef was slaughtered or processed, to prove that the technique could work commercially.
Cattle breeders already try to select cows for desirable traits such as the ability to put on weight quickly. They also try, not always successfully, to breed in the ability to produce good meat. "They have an idea of the quality of the meat before slaughter. But they 're frequently wrong," Wanner says.
Randy Huffman, vice-president of scientific affairs with the American Meat Institute Foundation in Washington DC, agrees. Some traits that are important to the packing industry, like tenderness, are difficult to detect in the live animal, he says.
The team used kidney cells since they are usually left with the side of beef after slaughter and throughout the process of grading, judging how good the meat is. The researchers put the material from the kidney cell into an egg cell and implanted it in a cow. Apart from the source of the cells, the cloning technique was the same as ProLinea already uses.
ProLinea is one of several companies that are cloning farm animals. Others include Edinburgh-based PPL Therapeutics, the company that cloned Dolly the sheep, Infigen in Wisconsin, and Advanced Cell Technology in Massachusetts, a company Stice used to work for.
But Joseph Mendelson, legal director for the Center for Food Safety, a Washington pressure group, says not enough is known about cloning to put the meat on the market yet. "We don 't really know what 's going on in these animals," he says. Many cloned embryos die in the womb. Some animals that are born have physical abnormalities, such as a propensity to obesity, or respiratory difficulties.
Wanner says the clones would not themselves be used for meat. They would be used to breed other animals with desirable traits. Some animal breeders are already cloning especially valuable breeding animals.
The US Food and Drug Administration has asked companies to delay selling meat or milk derived from cloned animals, probably until after the National Academy of Sciences finishes a report on cloning safety that is expected in a few months.
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/cloning/cloning.jsp?id=23412200
A COW has been cloned using cells taken from a side of beef, 48 hours after slaughter. This might mean ranchers could select their breeding stock after they 've seen the quality of meat it will produce -though the clones themselves would not be eaten.
The calf was born on 22 April, say scientists at the University of Georgia and agricultural biotechnology company ProLinia, based in Athens, Georgia. The team was headed by Steven Stice, a Georgia University researcher who was among the first to produce cloned cows.
The calf was cloned from a kidney cell taken from a side of beef in a local slaughterhouse. This isn 't the first time that cells from a dead animal have been used in cloning -last year, scientists used genes from two dead ewes to recreate a rare mouflon sheep. But ProLinia president Mike Wanner says the company didn 't change anything about the way the beef was slaughtered or processed, to prove that the technique could work commercially.
Cattle breeders already try to select cows for desirable traits such as the ability to put on weight quickly. They also try, not always successfully, to breed in the ability to produce good meat. "They have an idea of the quality of the meat before slaughter. But they 're frequently wrong," Wanner says.
Randy Huffman, vice-president of scientific affairs with the American Meat Institute Foundation in Washington DC, agrees. Some traits that are important to the packing industry, like tenderness, are difficult to detect in the live animal, he says.
The team used kidney cells since they are usually left with the side of beef after slaughter and throughout the process of grading, judging how good the meat is. The researchers put the material from the kidney cell into an egg cell and implanted it in a cow. Apart from the source of the cells, the cloning technique was the same as ProLinea already uses.
ProLinea is one of several companies that are cloning farm animals. Others include Edinburgh-based PPL Therapeutics, the company that cloned Dolly the sheep, Infigen in Wisconsin, and Advanced Cell Technology in Massachusetts, a company Stice used to work for.
But Joseph Mendelson, legal director for the Center for Food Safety, a Washington pressure group, says not enough is known about cloning to put the meat on the market yet. "We don 't really know what 's going on in these animals," he says. Many cloned embryos die in the womb. Some animals that are born have physical abnormalities, such as a propensity to obesity, or respiratory difficulties.
Wanner says the clones would not themselves be used for meat. They would be used to breed other animals with desirable traits. Some animal breeders are already cloning especially valuable breeding animals.
The US Food and Drug Administration has asked companies to delay selling meat or milk derived from cloned animals, probably until after the National Academy of Sciences finishes a report on cloning safety that is expected in a few months.