Horse and cattle cloning now commercialised in Australia, 30 years after Dolly the sheep

By Peter de Kruijff and James Bullen, ABC

Easter confirmed potential as a polo horse.

Born from a former winner on the prime degree of Australian horse racing, the grey-coated mare was bred for efficiency.

Then, at 4 years outdated, the thoroughbred’s life and sporting profession have been minimize quick after she developed a deadly episode of colic.

But her dying was not the tip. Easter’s proprietor John Farren-Price turned to know-how to protect her genetics for a future resurrection.

“We looked overseas, looked at the technology and came to the realisation that it was certainly doable … to clone a horse in Australia,” he stated.

In 2017, Farren-Price determined to start out his personal horse cloning operation from the bottom up.

His firm, Catalina Equine, has now cloned greater than 80 horses at its 80-hectare property on the banks of the Hawkesbury River, simply outdoors of Sydney.

It’s one in all solely two industrial animal cloning operations in Australia, and amongst only a handful of companies all over the world making genetic copies of horses, agricultural animals and even pets.

How to clone a horse

Cloning a mammal from an grownup cell pattern was first achieved in 1996 with the delivery of Dolly the sheep in Scotland.

The cloning approach is called somatic cell nuclear switch.

The nucleus, which incorporates an organism’s genetic blueprint, is taken from the animal you wish to clone and positioned into a unique animal’s egg cell, which has had its personal nucleus eliminated.

This is changed into an embryo, which is implanted in a surrogate mom that then offers delivery to a genetic copy – or clone – of the unique donor animal.

In horses, it takes about 11 months of gestation earlier than a foal is born.

The first-ever cloned horse, a Haflinger breed named Prometea, was birthed in Italy in 2003. Horse cloning quickly turned well-liked on the highest ranges of worldwide polo in international locations like Argentina and the US.

Argentinian polo participant Adolfo Cambiaso infamously rode six clones of his champion horse, Cuartetera, in the identical match in 2016. And a six-month-old clone of the identical horse as soon as fetched a reported $US800,000 ($NZ1.36 million) at public sale.

What different animals are cloned in Australia?

Close to 60 animal species have been cloned all over the world, from frogs to monkeys.

In Australia, sheep and cows have been among the many first.

Richard Fry, founding father of the corporate Speed Breed, has cloned about 50 animals, principally cattle, since 1992.

“It’s still a very niche market because the thing about cloning is that you don’t actually improve the genetics,” he stated.

“Sometimes it could be as a result of somebody has purchased the final reside Brahmans into Australia, and they also wish to maintain these genetics going.

“It might be the best dairy Holstein in Australia – we’ve made four copies of that cow.”

While just a few cows have been cloned in Australia, principally for breeding functions, it’s seemingly beef or milk merchandise from their younger have been consumed by the general public.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand, the regulator for meals merchandise in each international locations, would not have any additional rules for cloned animals.

Cow cloning prices about A$15,000 (NZ$16,600), however Dr Fry can also be concerned in “genetic protection packages” the place cells from top-of-the-line cattle are frozen and saved.

Akin to an insurance coverage coverage towards catastrophe and illness in case your herd was worn out, it lets you rebuild with the genetics of a $200,000 animal.

Dr Fry and Catalina have additionally individually acted as intermediaries for individuals who wish to clone their pets abroad, by culturing and storing biopsies.

There are at the moment no pet cloning companies in Australia.

But industrial and larger-scale animal cloning, together with for pets, is going down in international locations like China, the US, Argentina, Canada, Brazil and South Korea. Viagen, an American firm, fees $US50,000 to clone a cat or a canine.

Why cloning hasn’t absolutely taken off

Although developments have been made since Dolly the sheep was cloned, the method continues to be inefficient.

In making an attempt to make Dolly, scientists created 277 embryos, 29 of which have been efficiently implanted into surrogates, however solely one in all which went full time period.

Dr Fry stated for many species, the success price for cloning was about 1 to 2 % from the gathering of eggs proper by way of to the delivery of a wholesome animal.

“In cattle it’s actually a fair bit better: 5 to 20 percent.”

Farren-Price stated Catalina had a 60 % success price of transferring a cloned embryo into surrogate mares.

“Then you lose about 10 percent [of those embryos] following transfer at about 45 days,” he stated.

Besides breeding inefficiencies, there have additionally been considerations about whether or not clones reside a shorter life than common animals. Dolly the sheep died on the age of 6 from a progressive lung illness, and had additionally developed arthritis.

But evolutionary ecologist Russell Bonduriansky, from the University of New South Wales, stated we nonetheless did not know so much about what occurs to clones as they get older.

“There is some remarkable research coming out of Japan on mice, where mice that have been cloned over multiple generations … seem to have normal longevity,” he stated.

“More generally, we still don’t really understand the issues around ageing with cloning.”

Research in 2017 additionally confirmed Dolly didn’t essentially age prematurely nor develop arthritis simply because she was a clone. Further clones of Dolly additionally lived for much longer.

And Prometea, the first-ever cloned horse from Italy, continues to be alive and nicely, and turned 22 in May. Her breed lives, on common, 25 to 30 years.

“There’s still a great deal that we haven’t solved yet but I think a lot of progress has been made,” Professor Bonduriansky stated.

So a lot that he thinks it’s inevitable there’ll quickly be makes an attempt to clone people, regardless of the follow being banned worldwide (aside from restricted stem cell remedy research).

“Now that we can clone all these other mammals, including monkeys, there’s nothing stopping somebody from cloning humans,” Professor Bonduriansky stated.

“Of course, this raises a lot of ethical issues. But the technology exists.”

How ‘an identical’ are cloned animals?

While it might be technically potential to clone a human, there’s nonetheless loads of fine-tuning and enhancements to be made when cloning animals like horses.

A significant hurdle in Catalina’s early days was sourcing horse egg cells. In different worldwide operations, these egg cells are collected from euthanased horses at abattoirs.

Catalina as an alternative has a steady of feminine horses that are “flushed” as soon as a month to gather eggs, in a course of just like what occurs in human IVF procedures.

“It was two years to build the technology and transfer the embryos and get a foal on the ground,” Farren-Price stated.

Although the value can fluctuate, usually Catalina now fees about $50,000 to clone a horse.

And 4 years in the past, the corporate lastly made a clone of Easter. Her identify is Samsara.

She is following within the footsteps of her genetic twin, and being coached to fulfil the unmet expectations of her predecessor.

“She can hopefully do what the original was going to do,” Farren-Price stated.

There are 15 clones on the property in the mean time, together with six of the identical horse: Rex.

When Victorian polo participant Ben Kay first sat on Rex, who’s now 8 years outdated, he knew there was one thing particular in regards to the New Zealand-born horse: “He’s super fast, super agile and just very strong.”

Eventually, there shall be 9 clones of Rex.

While clones are genetically an identical, similar to an identical twins, their look and different delicate traits can differ.

Genes shall be expressed in another way generally due to, for example, genetic mutations or environmental components.

“If you start to drill down on things like … the colouring of their face, they’re all unique,” Farren-Price stated.

There’s no assure all of the Rex clones shall be champion polo horses, and it is going to be one other 5 or 6 years till their house owners know for positive.

But Kay is hoping the horses could have the identical calm temperament as the unique Rex.

“John seems to think they’re all pretty similar. He knows his clones better than me and he’s very impressed by the way they’ve turned out,” he stated.

-ABC