Valeria Mendoza

December, 18,
2015

Gene Cloning

Block 4

What exactly is gene cloning? How does it affect our society? How does it
happen? How is it possible?
What exactly is gene cloning?
Gene cloning is when you produce exact replicas of a specific gene or a DNA
sequence using modern genetic engineering. Many biological human issues
can be easily solved using cloning, for example much of the food production
provided currently is thanks to the scientific use of cloning, and this can be
done by cloning livestock for successful commercial value, this act may be
seen as somewhat contradictory due to the fact the act of genetically cloning
an animal to have perfect food production, brings on the question of whether
or not the food that we are consuming is completely real or if its just
processed illegitimate production, although scientist have confirmed cloned
food production is entirely safe to consume.
The first ever cloning of two mammals occurred in Scotland 1997 when
scientists successfully cloned two sheep named Molly and Polly from an
adult somatic cell, this scientific advancement was initiated with the desire
for cloning to be used in pharmacological and therapeutic proteins to treat
human diseases, another form of cloning is trans genesis which is when
you can add another specified factor to alter the result of a product; this is
used to genetically modify certain food products that are in need of a specific
factor to achieve perfection, gene therapy is another area of cloning due to
the fact it could only be done by inserting well-structured genes necessary
and replacing the genes with disorders, this helps us defeat diseases and is
currently being perfected to achieve its greatest success rate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_and_Molly
How does it happen?
A summary of cloning an animal such as molly and Polly can be done by
extracting an adult cell from a donor and inserting it into a hollowed out egg
that has no DNA-containing nucleus, scientists have two different strategies;
they can extract the adults somatic cell and proceed to inject it into the
hollowed out egg, or they can use an electrical current to fuse the somatic
cell and the embryo together. The final results of both processes the egg

proceeds to transform and develop as an early-stage embryo in a test-tube,

and then is implanted into the womb of an adult female animal to get a clone
of the donor (not all clones are physically identical to their cell donor, but
they do contain an exact replica of their genetic material). Reproductive
cloning helps researchers to make copies of animals with potential to
advance medicine or agriculture.

Step by step:
1. Due to the fact the nucleus is ultimately what contains the genetic
information you initially have to separate it from non-reproductive cell
of the donor. In order to collect a large amount of cell nuclei you must
repeat the isolation of the nucleus many times, this is all done by
injecting a small needle and syringe in order to poke through the cell
membrane to attain the nucleus and remove it from the rest of the cell.
2. Secondly, you must obtain unfertilized eggs to inject the donor cell
into, these eggs must be obtained in a large quantity in order to get
have a greater success rate.
3. The unfertilized eggs nucleus must then be removed in order to inject
the donor somatic nucleus into the cell
4. Once all steps are done the egg must be inserted into the womb of a
female to produce the clone.

Therapeutic cloning is another form of cloning but this term does not attempt
to replicate the creation of an animal for commercial purposes, therapeutic
cloning copies a particular embryo in order to create embryonic stem cells
with the exact same DNA as the donor cell. These stem cells can be used in
experiments to understand certain diseases and can be used to develop new
treatments/cures for diseases. For example if you were in need to receive
medical treatment that particularly included the use of cells grown from stem
cells, your bodys immune system would automatically recognize the cells as
foreign, and therefore would reject them. But this would not happen if you
received cells with the same genes as your own. Therapeutic cloning can
solve this problem by replicating one of your own cells to produce an
embryo, then proceeding to take stem cells from it. Wikipedia, (2015).
Cloning. [Online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloning [Accessed
18 Dec. 2015].

Step by Step:
1. The DNA-containing nucleus needs to be isolated from a human egg
cell
2. The extracted nucleus from a patient's cell is then injected into an
egg cell
3. egg cell is then stimulated to develop into an embryo
4. stem cells are then taken from the embryo
5. the stem cells are grown in a container of warm nutrients
6. Stem cells are treated to be transformed into required cell types.

How does cloning affect our society?

Positive impacts:
Animal cloning; the food industry currently is greatly impacted by the use of
cloning, this is portrayed through the commercial use of cloning either
animals such as pigs, cows, etc. that have potential genetics that can be
used as commercial value (ex. A cow that is an efficient producer of high
quality milk or meat is most likely cloned to replicate its quality).
Trans genesis; instead of replicating an entire product, trans genesis extracts
an exogenous gene called a transgene into a living organism so that the
organism will exhibit a new property and transmit that property to its
offspring. This act can help us in disease prevention ( by experimenting with
trans genetic animals, food, etc. you can discover new products that are
disease resistant and can help in studies for disease prevention.).
Therapeutic cloning; the act of manufacturing stem cells can help humans in
the medical area due to the fact stem cells maintain, and repair the body
throughout our lives. Therapeutic cloning can be used to possibly even for
growing whole organs. And stem cells cloned from someone with a disease
could be grown in culture and studied to help researchers understand the
disease and develop treatments.
Reviving extinct species; Unfortunately global warming, hunting, or harsh
environments etc. have contributed to the many factors as to why animals
are becoming extinct, but thanks to cloning scientists can obtain cells from a
living species that has the potential/is extinct and can replicate them to
attempt to conserve the species. This is a major impact for the world.

Negative Impacts:
Animal Cloning; there is a high failure rate when cloning animals The success
rate ranges from 0.1 percent to 3 percent, which means that for every 1000
tries, only one to 30 clones are made these failures could be due to failure in
the implantation of the embryo to the surrogate mother, egg and nucleus
may not be compatible etc. and many of the surviving clones may be faced
with mutations and these Sometimes the defects manifest themselves later
and kill the clone. Although scientist have confirmed food that is produced by
cloning is entirely safe to eat, consumers are questioning its legitimacy.
Trans genesis; there is a risk that genetically engineered genes could
accidentally be introduced into wild plants, reducing biodiversity and
creating super-weeds while reducing pesticide use. Potential to inadvertently
introduce allergens into foods

Therapeutic cloning; unfortunately Just a small portion of stem cells are

usable and some of the cells can mutate and cause tumors in patients. In
order to cure disease, millions of eggs are needed and currently we do not
have that supply of quantity of cells to do so, not to mention that the cost of
therapeutic cloning is extremely expensive.
Reviving extinct species; cloning extinct animals creates the question as to
whether or not we would be creating them almost solely for our own
commercial purposes. There would be a most certainly be companies
anxiously desiring to make profits from the practice. Although scientific
knowledge would be progressed, there is also a good chance that we would
cause a lot of danger for these cloned animals.

How is it possible?
Animal Cloning; requires nuclear transfer, (transferring the nucleus into an
unfertilized egg). The cell contains workable versions of all the genes
necessary to produce an entire organism. Involve recombinant DNA
technology or molecular cloning. A segment of DNA from one organism (a
vector) is introduced into the DNA of a second organism, yielding a hybrid or

recombinant DNA molecule. The hybrid DNA molecule is then introduced into
a host organism, in which it can be rapidly replicated and expressed to
produce proteins of commercial or medical importance. The first such protein
to be marketed commercially was human insulin, which is a small protein,
having fewer than 100 amino acids. Chemistryexplained.com, (2015). Clones
- Chemistry Encyclopedia - proteins, molecule, mass. [online] Available at:
http://www.chemistryexplained.com/Ce-Co/Clones.html [Accessed 18 Dec.
2015].

Conclusion
Ultimately the three different sections to gene cloning; reproductive cloning
(animal), therapeutic cloning and Trans genesis, are all great scientific
advances that greatly impact our society, the main method to cloning is by
extracting a nucleus from a donor and inserting it into an unfertilized egg to
produce a clone. Disease prevention, medicine, food production,
conserve/revive extinct species, etc. are all ways that cloning has impacted
our society.
Is human cloning possible? And if it is what risks/problems may it produce?
exactly how legit is cloning today?

References
Anon, (2015). [online] Available at:
https://www.
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/cloning/clonezone/
ndsu.edu/pubweb/~mcclean/plsc431/cloning/clone6.htm [Accessed 18
Dec. 2015].
Chemistryexplained.com, (2015). Clones - Chemistry Encyclopedia proteins, molecule, mass. [online] Available at:
http://www.chemistryexplained.com/Ce-Co/Clones.html [Accessed 18
Dec. 2015].
Genome.gov, (2015). Cloning Fact Sheet. [online] Available at:
https://www.genome.gov/25020028 [Accessed 18 Dec. 2015].
Iptv.org, (2015). Clone Process In-Depth Explore More: Genetic
Engineering. [online] Available at:
http://www.iptv.org/exploremore/ge/what/clone.cfm [Accessed 18 Dec.
2015].
Learn.genetics.utah.edu, (2015). The History of Cloning. [online]
Available at: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/cloning/clonezone/
[Accessed 18 Dec. 2015].
LiveScience.com, (2015). How Does Cloning Work?. [online] Available
at: http://www.livescience.com/32295-how-does-cloning-work.html
[Accessed 18 Dec. 2015].
Wikipedia, (2015). Cloning. [online] Available at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloning [Accessed 18 Dec. 2015].