University of Tennessee scientists clone cow without using patented technologies

A University of Tennessee (Knoxville) husband and wife team is reporting the birth of the first Jersey cow clone, Millie, short for Millennium. Lannett Edwards and Neal Schrick used somatic cells from an adult Jersey cow named Teresa, chosen for being a high milk producer, and standard culture conditions to create Millie. While two other groups in the United States have cloned cows from somatic cells (at the University of Connecticut and Texas A&M), the Tennessee effort did not use any patented technologies, demonstrating that cloning can be done simply and cheaply. In addition, Millie is the first cloned animal whose production records can be compared to that of her donor, since Teresa has been monitored her whole life.

Schrick collected ovarian (somatic) cells from Teresa using ultrasound. Then Edwards cultured Teresa's cells using standard cell culturing techniques, as opposed to the process patented by the Roslin Institute that produced Dolly the sheep in 1996. Edwards then removed the DNA from the egg of another cow, and using electrofusion, joined a cultured somatic cell to the remaining egg cytoplasm. The resulting one-cell cloned embryo was cultured in vitro up to the blastocyst stage (6 or 7 days). Edwards produced 95 embryos in this manner.

Nineteen viable cloned blastocysts were transferred by Schrick into the uteri of 17 recipient surrogates, all Angus heifers from the Knoxville Experiment Station herd. Angus were chosen as surrogates as they tend to be larger than Jerseys. Since, up until now, cloned animals are larger than their uncloned counterparts, the thought was that an Angus could handle the larger fetus better.

Nine heifers became pregnant with clones, and although the pregnancies were carefully monitored, only one, Millie, was carried to full term.

"Cloning procedures are more simple than we first thought," Edwards said in an interview with the Associated Press. "We basically were able to use routine cell culture methods in the laboratory, which could make cloning on a commercial basis more affordable."

The research team was funded by the University of Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station using a combination of USDA Hatch funds and state funds. A team of dozens of researchers and support staff were involved with creating Millie, among them veterinarians from the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine, Fred Hopkins, Matt Welborn, and Larry Kerr, who will continue to monitor Millie's health.

For more information: J. Lannett Edwards, Animal Science Department, University of Tennessee, 206 Brehm Animal Science Bldg., Knoxville, TN 37996. Tel: 423-946-1011. Fax: 423-974-7297. Email: jedwards@utk.edu.

By Laura DeFrancesco
Managing Editor, Bioresearch Online