Re: SciAm Dec. 2003 - DNA, Epigenetics, and Complexity

["Tim Gwinn" <***>]

Hi Jeff,

I imagine that probably would be very difficult, at the least, to perform.

When I did a quick web search for interspecies cloning, all the results I
saw involved nuclear transfers, where the nucleus of a cell from one species
is injected into an enucleated cell of the other species.

Regards,
Tim

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:*** Behalf Of Jeff
> Pridaux
> Sent: Monday, December 15, 2003 1:37 PM
> To: ***
> Subject: Re: SciAm Dec. 2003 - DNA, Epigenetics, and Complexity
>
>
> The following experiment might be interesting:
>
> As I understand it, for animals cloned so far, the DNA from a viable egg
> cell is replaced with DNA from another cell (from the same animal) in such
> a way to "trick" the egg to think it was fertilized.  It may be that the
> whole nucleus is swapped out of the egg.  Then the animal (or a like
> animal) carries the fertilized egg to term resulting in a clone of the
> animal (who donated the DNA)
>
> An interesting alternative would be to have the donor egg and the
> replacing
> DNA being from different animals.  And somehow just swap out the DNA
> without swapping out the surrounding chemicals around the DNA in the
> nucleus.  If that were possible and if an animal resulted that wasn't
> exactly the same as the DNA donor, then that would demonstrate
> that the DNA
> isn't EVERYTHING.
>
> I suspect, though, that this experiment may be very difficult (or maybe
> impossible) to perform.
>


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