 Seen above are canine clones of a dead Siberian Husky. The left one has odd eyes to resemble the donor of the somatic cells while the right one’s eyes are normal. |
By Kim Tae-gyu
Cloning expert Hwang Woo-suk and his researchers have recently produced a pair of healthy puppies cloned from an odd-eyed dog, which died of cancer, at the request of its Japanese owner.
The Sooam Biotech Research Foundation (SBRF) where Hwang’s team works said Tuesday that the cloning involved cells, which were extracted from the dog when it was alive.
“Somatic cells of the dog, a Siberian Husky, were taken last year in Japan and the cloning work was started this May by SBRF scientists,” said professor Hyun Sang-hwan at Chungbuk National University, also an advisor to SBRF.
“A total of three dogs were born on Sept. 7 and Sept. 8 this year and two have survived to be delivered to the Japanese owner of the cell donor. They are healthy.”
The cell donor died after suffering from cancer. Before its death, somatic cells were extracted in June 2009, which were used to create the clones. One of the two puppies has odd eyes while the other has normal ones.
“The dead dog’s left eye was white but in the case of the cloned one with odd eyes, its right eye is white. This might contribute to research on genetic disorders,” Hyun said.
“In addition, we learned that puppies cloned from a cancer-suffering dog can be free from nature’s most-feared killer. We need to monitor them with regard to whether they will contract cancer later on, though.”
Hyun added this was the first time that a Japanese client has asked for the cloning of dogs.
“Thus far, those from the United States, Australia and China requested cloning. This time around, we successfully duplicated dogs in order to meet demands from a Japanese client,” Hyun said.
“This demonstrates that dog cloning has already been commercialized globally. A French client also asked for a clone recently.”
Hwang basked in the global spotlight in 2004 and 2005 as he claimed to have cloned stem cells from human embryos. Both works were featured in cover stories for the prestigious U.S. journal Science.
But later studies found that he fabricated data and there were no patient-specific stem cells at all although disputes still linger whether or not the first cell line was a genuine clone.
Hwang authored a paper to contend that the first cell line was made up of cloned stem cells from human embryos and it is currently under review by an international journal.
By contrast, his expertise in dog cloning has been recognized as the world’s first canine clone dubbed Snuppy is accepted as the real deal. Hwang’s team has cloned many dogs at the request of customers worldwide.
황우석팀, “짝짝이 눈” 개 복제 성공
황우석 서울대 전교수가 속해있는 수암바이오연구재단의 연구팀이 “짝짝이 눈”을 가진 시베리안 허스키 종을 복제하는데 성공했다.
수암재단에서 고문으로 일하는 충북대학교 현상환 교수에 따르면 암으로 죽은 일본 시베리안 허스키 종이 죽기 전에 추출한 체세포로 올해 9월 세 마리의 복제견을 생산, 두 마리가 살아 남았다.
둘 중 한 마리는 체세포 공여자의 “짝눈”을 그대로 닮았고 한 마리는 정상 눈을 가지고 태어났다.
현교수는 “죽은 개는 왼쪽 눈이 흰색이었는데 복제 견 중 한 마리는 오른쪽 눈이 흰색이다. 앞으로 유전적 이상에 대한 연구에 도움이 될 것이라고 생각한다”라고 밝혔다.
황교수팀이 일본인의 요청으로 복제를 성공한 것은 처음이다.
현교수는 “그 동안 미국이나 호주, 중국 고객의 요청은 있었지만 일본 고객의 복제 요구는 이번이 처음이다. 개 복제가 전세계적으로 상업화되고 있다는 징표라고 생각한다. 최근 프랑스에서도 비슷한 요청이 있었다”라고 한다.
