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      Freeze-Dried Mice Successfully Cloned by Researchers

      Japanese scientists have successfully produce clone of mice using freeze-dried cells in a technique they believe could one day help conserve species and overcome challenges with current biobanking methods.

      The United Nations has warn that extinctions are accelerating worldwide and at least a million species could disappear because of human-induce impacts like climate change.

      Facilities have sprung up globally to preserve samples from endanger species with the goal of preventing their extinction by future cloning.

      These samples are generally cryopreserve using liquid nitrogen or kept at extremely low temperatures, which can be costly and vulnerable to power outages.

      They also usually involve sperm and egg cells, which can be difficult or impossible to harvest from old or infertile animals.

      Scientists at Japan’s University of Yamanashi want to see whether they could solve those problems by freeze-drying somatic cells any cell that isn’t a sperm or egg cell and attempting to produce clones.

      They experiment with two types of mice cells, and found that, while freeze-drying kill them and cause significant DNA damage, they could still produce cloned blastocysts a ball of cells that develops into an embryo.

      From these, the scientists extract stem cell lines that they use to create 75 clone mice.

      One of the mice survive a year and nine months, and the team also successfully mated female and male clone mice with natural-born partners and produce normal pups.

      The clone mice produce fewer offspring than would have expect from natural-born mice, and one of the stem cell lines develop from male cells produce only female mice clones.

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      Teruhiko Wakayama, a professor at the University of Yamanashi’s Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences Said, who help lead the study published in the journal Nature Communications this month.

      “Improvement should not be difficult,”

      “We believe that in the future we will be able to reduce abnormalities and increase the birth rate by searching for freeze-drying protectant agents and improving drying methods,”.

      ‘Very exciting advance’

      There are some other drawbacks the success rate of cloning mice from cells store in liquid nitrogen or at ultra-low temperatures is between 2% to 5%, while the freeze-dried method is just 0.02%.

      But Teruhiko Wakayama says the technique is still in its early stages, comparing it to the study that produce “Dolly” the famous sheep clone a single success after more than 200 tries.

      Teruhiko Wakayama Said :

      “We believe the most important thing is that cloned mice have been produced from freeze-dried somatic cells, and that we have achieved a breakthrough in this field,”.

      While the method is unlikely to entirely replace cryopreservation, it represents a “very exciting advance for scientists interested in biobanking threatened global biodiversity”, said Simon Clulow, senior research fellow at the University of Canberra’s Centre for Conservation Ecology and Genomics.

      Simon Clulow Said :

      “It can be difficult and costly to work up cryopreservation protocols and so alternatives, especially those that are cheaper and robust, are extremely welcome,”.

      The study store the freeze-dried cells at minus 30 degrees Celsius, but the team has previously show freeze-dried mouse sperm can survive at least a year at room temperature and believes somatic cells would do too.

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      Teruhiko Wakayama Said :

      The technique could eventually “allow genetic resources from around the world to be stored cheaply and safely”.

      The work is an extension of years of research on cloning and freeze-drying techniques by Teruhiko Wakayama and his partners.

      One of their recent projects involved freeze-drying mouse sperm that was sent to the International Space Station.

      Even after six years in space the cells were successfully rehydrate back on Earth and produce healthy mice pups.

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