Review on the current status of the extent and use of cloning in animal production in Australia and New Zealand

Reviewer: Professor R.F. Seamark for SA Consulting Pty Ltd

March 2003

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Exective Summary

Cloning, is the propagation of genetically exact duplicates (clones) of an organism by means other than sexual reproduction.Cloning of mammals is currently achieved by nuclear transfer (NT), that is replacing the genetic material of an unfertilized ovum (oocyte) with that of an embryonic or somatic cell taken from the animal being cloned, and then transferring the reconstituted embryo to a surrogate mother for rearing.

Globally, all the major livestock species have now been clonedbut animal-cloning technology is still best viewed as being in its infancy.  Only 0.1-5 % of cloning attempts yield viable offspring due to complications caused by incomplete reprogramming of the nucleus following transfer, imprinting failure and aberrant expression of early development genes. Furthermorethere are concerns about the health status of surviving animals. Given the public interest in human cloning, this has served to excite debate and initiate a flurry of regulatory activity worldwide relating to animal welfare and food safety issues.Researchers are optimistic these concerns can be addressedand the prospects for medicine, biotechnology and agriculture, offered by this revolutionary technology, will be realized.

There are six groups with active livestock cloning programs in Australia and New Zealand (AgResearch, Hamilton, NZ; Dairy CRC, Vic.; CSIRO, NSW; SARDI, SA; BresaGen, SA, and Clone International, Vic.), and these have so far produced a total of 32 cattle, 11 sheep and 2 pig clones by NT from a variety of cells of embryonic, fetal and somatic (adult) origin. The animals presently targeted for cloning are mostly of scientific value and many are genetically modified. Outcome assessments concerning animal health and welfare or data on comparative food values of clones versus conventionally bred livestock are likely to remain, at least for a 1-2year time period, extremely limited.

Given the expected genetic similarity of a clone to the parent animal,there is no known scientific reason to expect that the production traits of livestock clones (and any offspring), will differ in any major way from the parent and, allowing for any differences in husbandry, to expect that any food or other products derived from the clone would differ in nutritional value and other food qualities;although this supposition has yet to be fully validated experimentally.

The close links in the public mind between potential foodstuffs arising from cloning technology and genetically modified animals is likely to generate concern that may demand a conservative regulatory approach.

Full Report  [  Word  |  pdf format 398 kb  ]