In order to renew her relationship with her pet cats, Canadian woman Kris Stewart spent $50,000 to bring back two pets from a pet cloning company.
Her pet was named Bear. In January 2022, the pet cat died in a car accident. She was only 5 years old at the time.
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The owner was very sad and couldn't let go, so he asked a Texas biotechnology company for help in cloning his pet.
On January 10, 2024, the cloned children Bear Bear and Honey Bear were born. After staying in the cloning factory for two months, they were handed over to their owner Chris.
Owner Chris was very excited when he saw the cloned cats because they looked so much like the original bear. After taking it home, she couldn't put it down and said bluntly: “I can finally get over the grief of losing Bear!”
Coincidentally, in Beijing, China, a woman also spent 250,000 yuan to clone her pet dog because her beloved dog passed away. She was unable to get over her grief.
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A year later, when she received the cloned dog, the woman exclaimed: “My favorite puppy is back!”
There are many more cases like this, it can be said,Pet cloning has saved countless humans who were unable to get back on their feet after losing their pets.
In order to realize the wishes of more pet owners, pet cloning on the market is becoming more and more commercialized. With the improvement of technology, the price is not as high as before.
At present, the price of cloning a dog abroad is 50,000 US dollars, and the price in China is almost 200,000 US dollars.
The prices of cats and dogs are about the same. Cats are relatively cheaper. Horses are the most expensive, costing about $85,000.
Is the clone the same as the original body?
Every clone owner hopes to get a pet that is exactly the same as the original one, but from a scientific point of view, it can only be similar in appearance, but it cannot be exactly the same.
This can be seen from the cloning process (the picture is from the screenshot of the cloning company's website):
Take Wangcai as an example. First, you need to take the skin from Wangcai's skin. It is best to take it when you are young to prepare for emergencies.
Dogs that have just died (within 5 days) or are old can also be harvested, but due to poor cell activity, the cloning results will be affected.
The removed tissue will be cultured into cell lines for later use.
The nucleus from one of the cells is removed and transplanted into other mature oocytes. The oocytes come from other dogs, and the nuclei in the oocytes have been removed before transplantation.
Electric shock stimulates the two to combine and develop into an embryo.
Then the entire embryo is implanted into another female dog, and after the embryo matures, the cloned dog is born.
After the cloned dog is born, it will continue to live in the factory for about 2 months. After checking that everything is fine, it will be handed over to the owner. The entire pet cloning is completed. The factory will also provide DNA testing services.
Throughout the process, it can be seen that the nucleus of the clone is exactly the same as the original body. However, in a cell, in addition to the nucleus, there is also a small amount of genetic material in the oocyte cytoplasm. The oocyte comes from other individuals, resulting in differences between the original body and the clone. There will be differences between them.
Therefore, when the clone grows up, it can only be said to be very close to the clone in appearance, but it cannot be exactly the same.
These two puppies are the best examples. One has patterns on the left front foot, and the other does not.
“The appearance is similar and the soul is the same, so that's okay!”
But in fact, this is also difficult to achieve.
Because the pet's personality and behavior are influenced by both natural genetic factors and acquired environment, diet, training methods and other factors, they cannot be the same, and may even be completely opposite.
There is a couple abroad who spent a lot of money to clone their beloved cow. The original cow is very gentle, but the clone is very savage and has even hurt its owner twice.
The clone emerging from the corpse
The most controversial point about cloning is morality, so we have to mention the success rate of cloning.
China's cloning technology is at the world's leading level. We have successfully cloned sheep, cows, rabbits, horses, dogs, cats and other animals. Recently, we have also successfully cloned a rhesus monkey, which is more than 2 years old.
How much would the experiment cost in order to clone this monkey?
According to the statistics,A total of 113 embryos were cloned, 11 survived, and were implanted into 7 monkeys. Only 2 became pregnant, and only 1 was born alive and survives to this day.
Out of 113 embryos, only one survived, a success rate of less than 1%.
This is not all the loss,This does not include the damage of hundreds or even thousands of oocytes, because the probability of forming an embryo is also very low.
This means that pet cloning requires a large number of oocytes, so where do these oocytes come from?
There are only two ways, one is to perform sterilization surgery on pets in animal hospitals and collect them from discarded ovaries, and the other is to take them from living bodies.
It is very cruel to retrieve eggs from living animals, especially cats. Mature eggs will not be released automatically and require stimulation from mating to ovulate.
First, the female cat needs to be given hormones to enter a reproductive state, and then a cat sex toy is used to simulate the mating process to stimulate the female cat to ovulate;
Secondly,The abdomen needs to be cut open to expose the fallopian tubes, and the discharged eggs can be flushed out with egg flushing fluid and collected.
Generally speaking, cats lay 1-8 eggs at a time, which is far from enough for one cat.
The cloning factory has its own pet breeding base, which houses a large number of female cats. In addition to requiring injections and caesarean section to retrieve eggs, these cats also face another challenge, which is embryo transfer.
Cats who are preparing to become pregnant still need to take hormones and then surgically implant the embryo into the body.
This process is relatively traumatic, but the real challenge comes after the surgery.
Because it is not a natural conception, the embryo implanted by the female cat may stop development, miscarry, or be absorbed by the mother, and finally survive to term. The fetus may be born with malformations, and such fetuses may also face euthanasia.
The bitterness and pain involved are really only understood by the mother herself.
I have a sister who had done in vitro fertilization a few years ago. It took her two attempts before she succeeded. She can’t even remember how many injections she had and how many medicines she took.
Although I finally gave birth to a child as I wished, it also brought a lot of sequelae, which was miserable!
There are also many adverse reactions when embryos are implanted into a cat's mother. If you are not careful, the loss of the ability to conceive is still mild, and the serious one is death.
However, this is not a big deal for the cloning factory, because there is more than one pregnant mother, and there are many. There is always a mother with extraordinary talents, great luck, and strong physical fitness who can successfully give birth to the much-anticipated child of the owner. That cloned pet.
If it doesn't succeed, it doesn't matter. You can start over. In the words of an expert: “Once the original cell line is established, it is only a matter of time before the clone is successful.”
Sometimes it will happen like at the beginning, where 2 will be born in a lifetime and 2 will survive. Then the clone factory will be sold to the owner at 50% of the price, or the clone factory will be kept for “other uses”.
at last
In general, as technology becomes more and more advanced, the price of pet cloning will only get lower and lower, and more and more people will oppose it!
my country's first cloned cat was Garlic, born in 2019. According to reports, 16 female cats were successfully used for Garlic cloning, 12 of which were egg donors and 4 were pregnant mothers.
These 16 female cats had their bellies disemboweled and donated their ovaries and uterus, and the cloned cat Garlic was born.
It can be said that the birth of Garlic was based on the pain of these 16 cats.
I am against commercial pet cloning. It is okay to use this technology to save other endangered species, but it is too selfish to use it to please individuals on the premise of harming other animals!
Using 16 living cats to clone one dead cat is a naked preference, which is really cruel.
Editor in charge: Shang Shangwen Q