Reproductive cloning

Reproductive cloning involves the implantation of a cloned embryo into a real or an artificial uterus. The embryo develops into a fetus that is then carried to term. Reproductive cloning experiments were performed for more than 40 years through the process of embryo splitting, in which a single early-stage two-cell embryo is manually divided into two individual cells and then grows as two identical embryos. Reproductive cloning techniques underwent significant change in the 1990s, following the birth of Dolly, who was generated through the process of SCNT. This process entails the removal of the entire nucleus from a somatic (body) cell of an organism, followed by insertion of the nucleus into an egg cell that has had its own nucleus removed (enucleation). Once the somatic nucleus is inside the egg, the egg is stimulated with a mild electrical current and begins dividing. Thus, a cloned embryo, essentially an embryo of an identical twin of the original organism, is created. The SCNT process has undergone significant refinement since the 1990s, and procedures have been developed to prevent damage to eggs during nuclear extraction and somatic cell nuclear insertion. For example, the use of polarized light to visualize an egg cell’s nucleus facilitates the extraction of the nucleus from the egg, resulting in a healthy, viable egg and thereby increasing the success rate of SCNT.

Reproductive cloning using SCNT is considered very harmful since the fetuses of embryos cloned through SCNT rarely survive gestation and usually are born with birth defects. Wilmut’s team of scientists needed 277 tries to create Dolly. Likewise, attempts to produce a macaque monkey clone in 2007 involved 100 cloned embryos, implanted into 50 female macaque monkeys, none of which gave rise to a viable pregnancy. In January 2008, scientists at Stemagen, a stem cell research and development company in California, announced that they had cloned five human embryos by means of SCNT and that the embryos had matured to the stage at which they could have been implanted in a womb. However, the scientists destroyed the embryos after five days, in the interest of performing molecular analyses on them.

Therapeutic cloning

Therapeutic cloning is intended to use cloned embryos for the purpose of extracting stem cells from them, without ever implanting the embryos in a womb. Therapeutic cloning enables the cultivation of stem cells that are genetically identical to a patient. The stem cells could be stimulated to differentiate into any of the more than 200 cell types in the human body. The differentiated cells then could be transplanted into the patient to replace diseased or damaged cells without the risk of rejection by the immune system. These cells could be used to treat a variety of conditions, including Alzheimer disease, Parkinson disease, diabetes mellitus, stroke, and spinal cord injury. In addition, stem cells could be used for in vitro (laboratory) studies of normal and abnormal embryo development or for testing drugs to see if they are toxic or cause birth defects.

Although stem cells have been derived from the cloned embryos of animals such as mice, the generation of stem cells from cloned primate embryos has proved exceptionally difficult. For example, in 2007 stem cells successfully derived from cloned macaque embryos were able to differentiate into mature heart cells and brain neurons. However, the experiment started with 304 egg cells and resulted in the development of only two lines of stem cells, one of which had an abnormal Y chromosome. Likewise, the production of stem cells from human embryos has been fraught with the challenge of maintaining embryo viability. In 2001 scientists at Advanced Cell Technology, a research company in Massachusetts, successfully transferred DNA from human cumulus cells, which are cells that cling to and nourish human eggs, into eight enucleated eggs. Of these eight eggs, three developed into early-stage embryos (containing four to six cells); however, the embryos survived only long enough to divide once or twice. In 2004 South Korean researcher Hwang Woo Suk claimed to have cloned human embryos using SCNT and to have extracted stem cells from the embryos. However, this later proved to be a fraud; Hwang had fabricated evidence and had actually carried out the process of parthenogenesis, in which an unfertilized egg begins to divide with only half a genome. The following year a team of researchers from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne was able to grow a cloned human embryo to the 100-cell blastocyst stage using DNA from embryonic stem cells, though they did not generate a line of stem cells from the blastocyst. Scientists have since successfully derived embryonic stem cells from SCNT human embryos.

Progress in research on therapeutic cloning in humans has been slow relative to the advances made in reproductive cloning in animals. This is primarily because of the technical challenges and ethical controversy arising from the procuring of human eggs solely for research purposes. In addition, the development of induced pluripotent stem cells, which are derived from somatic cells that have been reprogrammed to an embryonic state through the introduction of specific genetic factors into the cell nuclei, has challenged the use of cloning methods and of human eggs.