الرئيسية
By Thomas Cooper, AFP
Scientists from Japan and Russia believe it may be possible to
clone a mammoth after finding well-preserved bone marrow in a thigh bone
recovered from permafrost soil in Siberia, a report said Saturday.
Teams
from the Sakha Republic's mammoth museum and Japan's Kinki University
will launch fully-fledged joint research next year aiming to recreate
the giant mammal, Japan's Kyodo News reported from Yakutsk, Russia.
By
replacing the nuclei of egg cells from an elephant with those taken
from the mammoth's marrow cells, embryos with mammoth DNA can be
produced, Kyodo said, citing the researchers.
The scientists will
then plant the embryos into elephant wombs for delivery, as the two
species are close relatives, the report said.
Securing nuclei with an undamaged gene is essential for the nucleus transplantation technique, it said.
For
scientists involved in the research since the late 1990s, finding
nuclei with undamaged mammoth genes has been a challenge. Mammoths
became extinct about 10,000 years ago.
But the discovery in August of the well-preserved thigh bone in Siberia has increased the chances of a successful cloning.
Global
warming has thawed ground in eastern Russia that is usually almost
permanently frozen, leading to the discoveries of a number of frozen
mammoths, the report said.
Scientists from Japan and Russia believe it may be possible to
clone a mammoth after finding well-preserved bone marrow in a thigh bone
recovered from permafrost soil in Siberia, a report said Saturday.
Teams
from the Sakha Republic's mammoth museum and Japan's Kinki University
will launch fully-fledged joint research next year aiming to recreate
the giant mammal, Japan's Kyodo News reported from Yakutsk, Russia.
By
replacing the nuclei of egg cells from an elephant with those taken
from the mammoth's marrow cells, embryos with mammoth DNA can be
produced, Kyodo said, citing the researchers.
The scientists will
then plant the embryos into elephant wombs for delivery, as the two
species are close relatives, the report said.
Securing nuclei with an undamaged gene is essential for the nucleus transplantation technique, it said.
For
scientists involved in the research since the late 1990s, finding
nuclei with undamaged mammoth genes has been a challenge. Mammoths
became extinct about 10,000 years ago.
But the discovery in August of the well-preserved thigh bone in Siberia has increased the chances of a successful cloning.
Global
warming has thawed ground in eastern Russia that is usually almost
permanently frozen, leading to the discoveries of a number of frozen
mammoths, the report said.
