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Mahesh

21/09/22 16:46 PM IST

World’s First Cloned Arctic Wolf

In News 
  • Scientists in China have successfully cloned wild Arctic Wolf for the first time.
Cloned Wolf 
  • A Beijing-based gene firm had succeeded in cloning the Arctic Wolf to prevent the endangered species from going extinct.
  • The newly cloned wolf was named Maya, which means good health.
  • The donor cell of the wolf came from a skin sample of a wild female Arctic Wolf. Its oocyte was obtained from a dog.
  • The cloning process involved the construction of 137 new embryos from enucleated (process of removing nucleus from the cell) oocytes and somatic cells.
  • 85 embryos were transferred to the uteri of seven beagles.
  • The beagle was chosen as the surrogate mother since this dog breed is found to share genetic ancestry with ancient wolf.
Cloning 
  • Cloning is the process of producing living organisms, including cells, tissues etc., with identical genetic materials ether through natural or artificial means.
  • In nature, some organisms produce clones through asexual reproduction.
  • Artificially, the first animal to be cloned was a sheep named Dolly. It was created in 1996 by a Scottish scientist using an udder cell from an adult sheep.
  • Recently, in July 2022, Japanese scientists have succeeded in producing cloned mice using freeze-dried skin cells. 
Arctic Wolf
  • The Arctic Wolf is also known as white wolf or polar wolf.
  • It is native to the High Arctic tundra of Canada’s Queen Elizabeth Islands.
  • It is a subspecies of the grey wolf.
  • This medium-sized wolf is smaller than the Alaskan timber wolf.
Source- India Today 

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