Question

A family member has been listening to news stories about animals and cloning, but he has no biology background, and so he is extremely confused. Explain to him the differences in both purpose and process between cloning an animal and cloning a gene.

Answer 1

Cloning an animal is making an exact copy of an existing animal from its non gamete cells or somatic cells. Every cell has something called a DNA which contains all information pertaining to that animal. Everything like its height, color, sex etc are stored in their DNA which is inside a compartment called nucleus. So we take this nucleus containing the DNA and put in inside the egg of another organism of the same species and allow it to grow in the belly of a surrogate. The offspring would be identical in all respects to the one we took the nucleus from.

Remember when we told DNA store all information? It does so in the form og what is called genes. They are just a blueprint of everything that makes an animal. For example there is a gene for color, there is one for height, one for disease resistance etc. Now if we want to take this gene for disease resistance and put it in something else, we do what is called gene cloning. We carefully locate the gene, isolate it and make many copies of it. Remember we are not making an entire new animal.