From Colin Birss
by e-mail
The scientific press tell us that Dolly the cloned sheep is genetically
identical to the adult sheep from which it was cloned. The procedure used by the
scientists who cloned Dolly was to remove a nucleus from one cell and add it to
an anucleated egg cell from another sheep.
Presumably the mitochondria of the egg cell, mitochondrial DNA and all, were
descended from the “egg parent” rather than the “nucleus parent”. Accordingly,
Dolly is not genetically identical to either parent.
Surely if one wanted to clone, say, Adolf Hitler, one would want to use all
his DNA (mitochondrial as well as everything else) to make an accurate copy? So
is Dolly identical to any pre-existing sheep?
Advertisement
