Freeze-dried mouth: how new technologies help protect species

Japanese scientists say frost-dried cells Succeeded in creating a cloned mouse using. They believe that one day they will help protect the species and overcome the challenges of current biobanking techniques.

The United Nations says that the extinction ofis acceleratingaround the world, anddue to human influences such as climate, at least 1 million. It warns that the species may disappear. Changes

A facility has been created worldwide to protect endangered species samples with the aim of preventing future cloning extinctions.

These samples are usually cryopreserved using liquid nitrogen or kept very cold, which is costly and power outage. Can be vulnerable to.

Usually includessperm and egg cells. These can be difficult or impossible to harvest from old or infertile animals.

Scientists at the University of Yamanashi in Japan want to know if somatic cells (cells that are not sperm or egg cells) can be cryodried and cloned to solve these problems. Was there.

They experimented with two types of mouse cells, killing them by freezing and causing serious DNA damage, while producing cloned blastocysts (cell spheres that develop into embryos). I found that it can be generated.

From these, scientists extracted the stem cell lines used to create 75 cloned mice. One of the

mice survived for 1 year and 9 months, and the team also mated male and female cloned mice with a naturally born partner to give birth to normal offspring.

Cloned mice produce fewer offspring than expected from naturally born mice, and one of the stem cell lines developed from male cells produces only clones of female mice. I did.

"Improvement is not difficult," said Professor Teruhiko Wakayama of the Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Yamanashi, who led the research published in Nature Communications this month.

"In the future, we believe that looking for lyophilizers and improving drying methods can reduce anomalies and increase fertility," he told AFP.

"We have achieved breakthroughs in this area."

There are some other drawbacks. The success rate of cloning mice from liquid nitrogen or cells stored at ultra-low temperature is 2-2. It's 5%, but the lyophilization method is only 0.02%.

However, Wakayama said the technique was still in its infancy, with one success in more than 200 trials compared to the study that produced the famous sheep clone "Dolly." I am saying.

"I believe that most importantly, the cloned mice were produced from lyophilized somatic cells and achieved breakthroughs in this area," he said. Told.

Although this method is unlikely to completely replace cryopreservation, it represents "a very exciting advance that threatens the world's biodiversity for scientists interested in biobanking." I am. Genomics.

"Alternatives, especially cheap and robust, are welcome, as creating a cryopreservation protocol can be difficult and costly," Clulow, who was not involved in the study. Added.

In this study, lyophilized cells were stored at -30 degrees Celsius, but the team previously showed that lyophilized mouse sperm can survive at room temperature for at least one year, somatic cells. I believe that I will survive.

Ultimately, this technology will "make it possible to store genetic resources around the world cheaply and safely," Wakayama said.

This study is an extension of many years of research on cloning and freeze-drying techniques by Wakayama and his partners.

One of the recent projects isFreezing and drying mouse sperm sent to the International Space StationEven after 6 years in space, cells are normally rehydrated on Earth. And gave birth to a healthy mouse pup. ..