The Hindu : International : Mice cloned from hairs

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 14, 2007
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International

International

Mice cloned from hairs

Alok Jha

London: Scientists have for the first time cloned mice using stem cells from the hairs of mature animals. The technique is several times more efficient than other cloning using adult cells, and in future could be used to create tailored therapies and help understand diabetes or diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Mice have been cloned using adult cells but it is very inefficient.

Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) takes the nucleus of a body cell and inserts it into a hollowed-out egg, which is eventually implanted into a womb in the hope it will become an embryo.

The vast majority of SCNT methods fail to produce live births. ``Typically, people get [success] in the few percent range, 1% or less,'' said Roger Pedersen of the University of Cambridge.

New study

In the new study researchers used the nuclei of keratinocyte stem cells, found at the base of hairs, that help hair growth and skin-wound repair.

``Researchers have known about these infrequently dividing cells for some time, but only recently have scientists revealed their potential to self-renew and produce multiple types of cells — the hallmarks of stem cells,'' said Elaine Fuchs of Rocker-feller University in New York, who led the work. Keratinocytes produce surface skin cells, hair follicles, and oil glands.

Prof Fuchs achieved a 1.6 per cent success rate using skin stem cells from female mice, but 5.4 per cent when using male mice. The results were published on Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In the long term, scientists want to use such cloning to generate therapies. A patient's skin cell could generate a cloned embryo which is grown for just a few days, at which point it is the size of a pin head. If embryonic stem cells, which can turn into any type of tissue, could be harvested from the early-stage embryo they could be used to regenerate damaged tissue which is genetically matched to a patient.

This would avoid immune rejection. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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