What is Cloning about? How does it work? Hubpages

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This article will be re-edited soon.]

Cloning

First of all, we have to define cloning, what it really is. So, what is cloning now?

Definition of Cloning

Cloning is the term for a process, where an individual is duplicated. It is completely genetically identical to the original. So, it possesses all of the original’s genotype and phenotype features.

After determining the term cloning, we’ll go into the procedure.

Actually, cloning isn’t only one procedure. There are three commonly used types in this blog, which I am going to explain to you.

Process of different Cloning methods

Embryo-Transfer:
This method is commonly used in farming. That’s why I’ll take also a cow to visualize this method.
Let’s assume a farmer has a very productive and good cow. Logically, he wants to have more such cows in order to gain more milk et cetera. In order to achieve this, he injects hormones into the good cow. This way, the cow produces more egg cells. After that, sperms cells are given to the cow (mostly from the same bull) and the sperms fuse with all the egg cells. After some weeks, those zygotes of the mammal cow are transferred into surrogate mother cows. In the end, many excellent cattle from the mammal cow will be born in a relatively short time.

The “actual” cloning what most people to understand amongst the term has again two different methods.

Embryo-splitting method:
An embryo already contains a full set of chromosomes. In a very early stage of the embryo development (4-8 cell stadium) they can be split and implanted into surrogates. To take the example of cows; the early embryo of a good mammal cow is taken out, split, and implanted into surrogate mother cows. In those surrogates the split embryo is still able to continue growing normally and will behave like a zygote. The result will be genetically identical cattle to the mammal cow.

Nucleus transplantation:
This might be a bit more complicated to read and understand, that’s why I list the “ingredients” to have a better overview:
- 1 egg cell
- 1 somatic cell (any cell)
- 1 surrogate
In order to clone an individual, all what is contained in an egg cell has to be removed. Then, we need a donor cell (=somatic cell), from where we’ll get the nucleus. This donated nucleus is now transplanted into the empty egg cell. After successful transplantation, there needs to be an incentive for the artificial zygote. An electrical impulse activates the inactivated genes of the donor cells’ nucleus. The artificial zygote is implanted into a surrogate mother cow. In the end, we’ll have exactly the same organism to the cell donor individual.