Cloning--Dolly

[Charlene]

When Dolly was cloned, does she genetically contain the age of the original sheep?
so... does that mean her life expentancy is shorter than normal?
If so, what if a baby animal was cloned instead?

[zami'87.]

When Dolly was cloned, does she genetically contain the age of the original sheep?
so... does that mean her life expentancy is shorter than normal?
If so, what if a baby animal was cloned instead?

I mean yeah, cause telomeres are shorter after so many replications.Yes her life is shorter.

[Chris4]

Thats one problem with cloning. Dolly got arthritis at a much younger age. Most cloned animals will get diseases at a much younger age due to the fact that they are actually older. Im not sure why they dont clone from a baby animal. Maybe they do. Or maybe theres a genetic reason why its more difficult to clone from a baby animal?

[zami'87.]

Thats one problem with cloning. Dolly got arthritis at a much younger age. Most cloned animals will get diseases at a much younger age due to the fact that they are actually older. Im not sure why they dont clone from a baby animal. Maybe they do. Or maybe theres a genetic reason why its more difficult to clone from a baby animal?

Well if you want your identical twin brother/sister I thin there is an easier way to get it.Maybe at the stadium of zygote(if there is a way to separate cells after zygote divides).

[MrMistery]

But is there such a way? I don't think so, not for humans at least...

[Charlene]

Well, we'll see in the future =p

[sam-guy]

I read an article which argued the reason Dolly got arthritis was because all the treats she was getting in order for her to pose for pictures in parallel to the lack of exercise. This is not my opinion but still worth considering.

[ac83]

you can do it from that. But then you got no idea of how the clone is going to turn out. Especially considering enviornmental factors as well

[telomerase]

cloning a baby is possible... but the egg has to come from an adult... and hence mitochondial DNA is "older" than nuclear DNA... which doesn't really matter in terms of age, but would matter in terms of cloning the perfect clone.

cloning primates is impossible at present... attempts to clone the rhesus monkey have failed despite successful early cell division... but blastocyst stage was never reached... alot of research has to be done on this one I guess.

[Jheilene]

Yeah...they've actually cloned a mule using a somatic cell from a 45-day-old feotus, and they're hoping that'll eliminate the "age-factor" that supposedly lead to Dolly's death. That mule they've cloned is a sibling of a world champion racing mule, its the first sterile one they've had, and they've called it Idaho Gem. That was on May 5th, 2003. Around the same time the Human Genome Project reached its completion.