India is fast logging into the clone age. Despite being a late entrant into the elite group of nations such as the US, United Kingdom, South Korea and China, which are at the forefront of animal cloning efforts, India has recently achieved significant successes. The country?s scientists have succeeded in cloning a buffalo and produced transgenic Rohu fish, the most consumed variety in the country.
Further research efforts are underway to clone Pashmina goat, other milch animals, rabbit and, on a more ambitious note, the now extinct Asiatic cheetah.
Unlike in the West where animal cloning has attracted a lot of attention, both as a branch of science and an ethical issue, after Ian Wilmot of Roslyn Institute London, produced the first sheep clone, Dolly, in 1996, research focus in India is fairly clear: to raise dairy and fish production, create new breeds, give a boost to the dwindling trade in the sought-after fur and, protect endangered animals.
Take for instance, the buffalo clone, nicknamed Garima, which was presented to the world recently at the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal. This was the second live cloned buffalo, the first one having lived only a few days.
?Garima is different from the first cloned buffalo, as in this case the donor cell was used from a foetus. In the case of the first one, the donor cell was taken from the ear of a newborn calf. In other words, it is very exciting to tell that Garima is a clone of the foetus that never saw the light of the day,? says AK Srivastava, director and vice-chancellor, NDRI.
Aware that cloning is not an easy task, NDRI scientists did their homework well in their second cloning endeavour. They used a new and advanced ?hand-guided cloning technique,? which is an advanced modification of the conventional cloning technique. For a layman, let us briefly decipher these breeding technicalities. Cloning is to create a genetically similar organism from a single parent without sexual reproduction. Quite simply, the clone of a female will be a female with genetic similarity to her mother and the clone of a male will be a male with genetic similarity to his father.
Hand-guided cloning, which helps in getting an offspring of the desired sex, was successfully tested in Garima, informs Srivastava. At a more technical level, egg cells were matured in-vitro and treated with the help of a hand-held fine blade. At a later stage, these cells were fused with the donor material, cultured and grown in the laboratory, and subsequently the resultant embryos were transferred to recipient buffaloes for the production of the calf. The net result was a healthy 43 kg Garima at the time of birth.
Srivastava is now optimistic that once this new hand-guided cloning technique is optimised, it could go a long way in faster multiplication of superior milch animals in India. ?We have the largest population of buffalo in the world. However, the percentage of elite animals is low and there is an urgent need to enhance the population of these elite buffaloes,? he adds.
The new technology of hand-guided cloning may lead to a new era in fast production of elite germplasm, in order to face the challenge of increasing demand of milk in view of ever growing human population, says Mangla Rai, director-general, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).
In order to understand the role of cloning and its practical applications, it is imperative to get a broader picture. India is the world?s largest milk producer with 104.9 million tonne milk production per year. Milk production in India is growing at 4% per year, and at present India contributes 15% of the total global milk production. Out of this, 55% is contributed by buffalo. However, demand for milk is increasing day by day owing to increase in population and individual income.
At the same time, the country has the largest cattle and buffalo population in the world, to the tune of about 180 million and 85 million respectively. This, more than being a productive resource, is causing huge pressure on our limited fodder reserves. Already there is a shortage of 30% fodder for domestic animals. The land for grazing and fodder production which is only 9% of total agriculture land is getting constricted day by day. ?In this situation, the only solution to increase our dairy production is to scientifically control the population of animals and upgrade them for better quality and more quantity of milk and meat per animal,? says a ICARofficial. Cloning of buffalo and other milch animals has the potential to multiply elite breed of buffaloes and cattle without loss of parental traits. It may also prove to be a very fast way of creating new breeds and may prove a boon for the dairy sector, informs the ICAR director-general.
Bolstered by their success, NDRI scientists are now gung ho on cloning the Pashmina goat as well. They are partnering with scientists from Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology in the Rs 9 crore World Bank-aided project. Research work is already underway and the scientists would use small tissues from the ear of the goats to produce the clone.
Expectations are that success of the cloning efforts would provide a strong impetus to the dwindling fur trade in Jammu & Kashmir. A rapidly declining population of Pashmina goats has resulted in a steep fall in the production of Pashmina wool in the state. With cloning methodology, a single goat would be able to give birth to over 50 offsprings in her lifetime as against one offspring a year and a maximum of five in her entire lifetime.
Down south, it is the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) which is leading the foray. Scientists have displayed their skills by genetically modifying the popular Rohu fish. Here again, the mandate has been to boost production by planting a synthesised gene into the fish genome. Once planted, this gene helps enhance the production of a growth hormone that makes the fish grow faster and bigger in size. By increasing the growth rate, fish breeders can reduce the time needed for fishes to reach their maximum size, thereby reducing feed costs and other expenses of fish hatcheries. In the natural breeding process, it can take several weeks to a year for a fish to attain its maximum size. Genetically modified fish at CCMB have exhibited two to three times in growth. CCMB scientist KC Majumdar informs that the institute has initiated a programme to develop species-specific DNA vaccine constructs to combat common bacterial diseases of aquaculture species.
In the past too, CCMB has tasted success with the Laboratory for Conservation of Endangered Species (LaCONES) as its core facility for wildlife management. Scientists have worked on developing assisted reproductive technologies to induce pregnancy in endangered animals by artificial insemination. The first success came in the form of a spotted deer. Next in line was a Black Buck, which led to the birth of a live fawn of this endangered species.
LaCONES is also providing forensic services for investigating wildlife related crimes. Incidentally, a pair of universal primers developed at CCMB are being used for PCR-based species identification such as meat, cooked meat, skin, horn, bones, hair, nail, scales etc and about 53 wildlife crime cases were completed.
CCMB director Lalji Singh says that biological research is now in an exciting stage. Globally, many groups have taken the challenge to develop newer DNA sequencing technology.
Equally exciting are the cloning efforts on the Asiatic cheetah. Here, the scientists plan to draw and create cell lines from the genetic material taken out from live Asiatic cheetah cells. These cell lines would then be infused into the eggs of a leopard, whose hereditary material has already have been stripped. In scientific parlance, remove the nucleus from the egg and replace it with the nucleus from the skin cells of the cheetah. The transgenic embryo would then be inserted into the receptive womb of a leopard. And its not just the Asiatic cheetah. Cloning technique has the potential to save many endangered species of domestic and wild animals on the verge of extinction.
At the same time, cloning is often confused with other advances in bio-medicine and bio-engineering?such as genetic selection. While human cloning is a strict no-no globally, scare scenarios of humans cultivated in sinister labs as sources of spare body parts, ?designer babies,? ?master races,? or ?genetic sex slaves,??formerly the preserve of sci-fi movies?have invaded mainstream discourse.
Scientists are quick to dispel these misconceptions. According to an ICAR scientist, cloning cannot in itself be used to produce ?perfect humans? or select sex or other traits. Hence, some of the arguments against cloning are either specious or fuelled by ignorance.
Still, when used in conjunction with other biotechnologies, cloning raises serious bio-ethical questions. It touches upon mankind?s most basic fears and hopes. It
invokes the most intractable ethical and moral dilemmas. As an inevitable result, the debate is often more passionate than informed. No wonder, the cloning breakthroughs have raised regulatory concerns. While a comprehensive regulatory mechanism exists in the country for genetically modified (GM) crops, no such arrangement is in place for GM animals. Therefore, effective laws and putting in place a system for regulating GM animal production and testing their bio-safety is equally important, many scientists feel.
Recent successes of Indian scientists with the buffalo and Rohu fish have opened the doors for animal cloning as a viable method of breeding. But in future, expect a growing list of animals carrying a ?cloned in India? tag.