On January 14, the reporter learned from Qingdao Agricultural University that dr. Zhao Minghui's team from the School of Life Sciences of the university successfully obtained the cloned offspring of forest cat somatic cells through research, and the school became the first university in China to successfully complete the cloning of feline somatic cells.
The cloned cat "Ping An" born on December 24, 2020. Lightning News Figures
The reporter saw in the laboratory on the 6th floor of the university's biology building that in the warm incubator, a kitten with black and white flowers was sleeping soundly and looked very healthy. Researchers told reporters that the cloned cat was born on December 24, 2020, weighing 75 grams, because it was the New Year, researchers named it "Ping'an". As a result of the cloning technology, this cloned cat survives safely and healthily.
Dr. Zhao Minghui, the host of the project, told reporters that at present, the surrogate mother cat and the physiological indicators of "Ping An" are performing normally. The main body of this cloned cat is an adult female forest cat that is crossed between a wild forest cat and a Chinese pastoral cat. The researchers isolated and cultured fibroblasts from the cat's skin tissue, used the Eggs of the Chinese Pastoral Cat as nucleus receptors, and produced multiple somatic cloned embryos through nucleus replacement and artificial activation. After the cloned embryos were transferred to the recipient female cat, after 62 days of gestation, a forest cat somatic cell cloned offspring was successfully obtained. At present, the project has been identified by the Beijing Zhongzheng Judicial Laboratory to determine that the forest cat is a cloned individual.
Zhao Minghui introduced that the cat cloning research project of Qingdao Agricultural University was implemented in July 2020, and the team members streamlined and improved the somatic cell cloning method, shortening the entire experimental process from the traditional 36 hours to 5 hours, and the time taken was shortened by 7 times. At the same time, the team adopted the operation mode of using only one culture medium in the whole process of the experiment, which avoided the embryonic damage that could be caused by frequent replacement of the culture solution, greatly reduced the operational risk, and improved the stability of the experiment. A total of 89 somatic cloned embryos were produced in this batch of experiments and transferred to 7 surrogate mother cats, of which 3 were pregnant, and the pregnancy rate reached 43%, which was the world's leading level.
The reporter learned that the breakthrough of the school's cat cell cloning technology is not only conducive to promoting the development of animal disease models and drugs, but also plays an important role in the field of biomedical research, the pet industry and the protection of endangered species. According to data released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, 3 of China's 21 species of wild cats are endangered, 2 are in critical danger, and 7 are in a vulnerable or near-threaten state. The loss of fertility of an animal in old age means the functional extinction of the species. Xenocyclav cell cloning using domestic cat eggs is currently the only technology that can replicate endangered animals in large quantities.
Source: Science and Technology Daily
Guangzhou Daily all-media editor Hu Qunzhi
![Continuation of the possibility of cloning of oviparous animals[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)