By Paul Recer
The Associated Press
PHIL SCHOFIELD/UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO VIA AP
Scientists announced that Idaho Gem, right, is the first cloned mule. Idaho Gem is shown with its surrogate mare.
WASHINGTON - The first member of the horse family to be cloned is a mule named Idaho Gem, the genetic brother of a champion racer. Researchers say two other mule clones are expected to be born this summer.
The May 4 birth of Idaho Gem adds mules to the barnyard of cloned animals that include sheep, cows, pigs, cats and rodents.
University of Idaho re-searchers cloned the mule using a cell from a mule fetus and an egg from a horse. Idaho Gem is the genetic brother of Taz, a champion racing mule, and the researchers said the cloned mule will also be trained to race.
Cloning a mule is particularly unusual because such animals, hybrids from a donkey and a horse, are almost always sterile.
"A mule can't do it himself, so we thought we would give it a hand," said Gordon L. Woods of the University of Idaho, the leader of the mule cloning team.
Now, Woods said, he plans to use the same techniques that worked on Idaho Gem to clone horses.
"We think the same sort of advances that we had to make to produce this cloned mule are important for cloning horses," Woods said. He is first author of a report appearing today in the journal Science.
Other researchers, however, said they expect the birth later this year of cloned horses produced by techniques slightly different from those used by the Idaho team.
Mules are bred by mating a male donkey with a female horse. The breeding success is about the same as among horses alone. Mating a male horse with a female donkey produces an animal called a hinnie. Both mules and hinnies can be male or female, but they are almost invariably sterile.
To clone Idaho Gem, researchers bred Taz's parents, a jack donkey and a mare, and allowed the resulting fetus to grow for 45 days. This provided the DNA needed for the clone.
The researchers then harvested eggs from horse mares. After removing the nucleus from each egg, the researchers inserted the DNA from the male fetal cells into the eggs. The eggs were then placed into the wombs of female horses.
Out of 307 attempts, there were 21 pregnancies and three carried to full term. Idaho Gem was born May 4, and Woods said the other two clones will be born in June and August.
Donald W. Jacklin, a businessman in Rathdrum, Idaho, paid $400,000 to finance the four-year cloning project.
"Our first goal was to clone an equine, but I have a special interest in mules," said Jacklin, who is president of the American Mule Racing Association.
Since mules are usually sterile, racing-mule owners cannot breed new animals from proven race stock to build up their stables as thoroughbred and quarter horse owners do. Mule cloning could offer an answer.
Katrin Hinrichs, a professor at Texas A&M University and the leader of a group of horse-cloning researchers, said her team has produced one long-term pregnancy and expects a mare to give birth to a cloned horse in November.
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ONLINE: Science, www.sciencemag.org
The Associated Press
PHIL SCHOFIELD/UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO VIA AP
Scientists announced that Idaho Gem, right, is the first cloned mule. Idaho Gem is shown with its surrogate mare.
WASHINGTON - The first member of the horse family to be cloned is a mule named Idaho Gem, the genetic brother of a champion racer. Researchers say two other mule clones are expected to be born this summer.
The May 4 birth of Idaho Gem adds mules to the barnyard of cloned animals that include sheep, cows, pigs, cats and rodents.
University of Idaho re-searchers cloned the mule using a cell from a mule fetus and an egg from a horse. Idaho Gem is the genetic brother of Taz, a champion racing mule, and the researchers said the cloned mule will also be trained to race.
Cloning a mule is particularly unusual because such animals, hybrids from a donkey and a horse, are almost always sterile.
"A mule can't do it himself, so we thought we would give it a hand," said Gordon L. Woods of the University of Idaho, the leader of the mule cloning team.
Now, Woods said, he plans to use the same techniques that worked on Idaho Gem to clone horses.
"We think the same sort of advances that we had to make to produce this cloned mule are important for cloning horses," Woods said. He is first author of a report appearing today in the journal Science.
Other researchers, however, said they expect the birth later this year of cloned horses produced by techniques slightly different from those used by the Idaho team.
Mules are bred by mating a male donkey with a female horse. The breeding success is about the same as among horses alone. Mating a male horse with a female donkey produces an animal called a hinnie. Both mules and hinnies can be male or female, but they are almost invariably sterile.
To clone Idaho Gem, researchers bred Taz's parents, a jack donkey and a mare, and allowed the resulting fetus to grow for 45 days. This provided the DNA needed for the clone.
The researchers then harvested eggs from horse mares. After removing the nucleus from each egg, the researchers inserted the DNA from the male fetal cells into the eggs. The eggs were then placed into the wombs of female horses.
Out of 307 attempts, there were 21 pregnancies and three carried to full term. Idaho Gem was born May 4, and Woods said the other two clones will be born in June and August.
Donald W. Jacklin, a businessman in Rathdrum, Idaho, paid $400,000 to finance the four-year cloning project.
"Our first goal was to clone an equine, but I have a special interest in mules," said Jacklin, who is president of the American Mule Racing Association.
Since mules are usually sterile, racing-mule owners cannot breed new animals from proven race stock to build up their stables as thoroughbred and quarter horse owners do. Mule cloning could offer an answer.
Katrin Hinrichs, a professor at Texas A&M University and the leader of a group of horse-cloning researchers, said her team has produced one long-term pregnancy and expects a mare to give birth to a cloned horse in November.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ONLINE: Science, www.sciencemag.org