Mammoth blood protein brought back to life

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Mammoth blood protein brought back to life
Dani Cooper


Mammoth DNA extracted with help of Australian researchers

Adelaide researchers have played a pivotal role in bringing the blood of the extinct woolly mammoth back to life using ancient DNA from the bones of specimens found in Siberia.

In today's Nature Genetics, an international team of researchers show how it used modern bacteria to recreate the main blood protein haemoglobin.

Analysis of the recreated haemoglobin has also answered the riddle of how the giant mammoth was able to survive harsh Arctic conditions, says the study's co-author Professor Alan Cooper, director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide.

Professor Cooper says the technique can now be used on a range of proteins of extinct species, including the tasmanian tiger and even neanderthal man, to better understand the "soft biology" or physiology of lost species.

"It is the same as if we went back 30,000 years and stuck a needle into a living mammoth," he said.

"This is true palaeobiology, as we can study and measure how these animals functioned as if they were alive today."

To recreate the mammoth haemoglobin the team used DNA found in the Siberian permafrost from three specimens that lived between 25,000 and 43,000 years ago.

The researchers converted the protein's DNA sequences into RNA, the strands of genetic material used by cells to convert DNA code into proteins.

These were then inserted into modern-day E-coli bacteria which manufactured the authentic mammoth protein.

Professor Cooper admits he thought the idea would not work when approached by co-author Professor Kevin Campbell of the University of Manitoba, Canada.

He says it has been "remarkable to bring a complex protein from an extinct species, such as the mammoth, back to life".

He says the study shows the mammoth's blood was adapted to cope with the freezing conditions through three evolutionary changes in the haemoglobin protein that make it temperature insensitive.

These changes occurred after the populations of the mammoth migrated from their tropical origins to the Arctic about 2 million years ago.

In the mammoth, haemoglobin is able to continue to deliver oxygen to cells even in freezing conditions.

In humans haemoglobin is temperature sensitive, meaning it gets sticky as it gets cold and does not release the oxygen resulting in cell death and conditions such as frostbite.

But people hoping this might lead to a living woolly mammoth will be disappointed.

"This is not going to bring the species back to life - we've [only] done this to one protein," Professor Cooper said.

He says the experience of cloning shows reproduction needs a mother of the same species to carry the embryo.

Professor Cooper says the technique relies on DNA, which is not preserved in fossils, making it unlikely it can be used on species such as dinosaurs that died out millions of years ago.

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Researchers aim to resurrect mammoth in five years
17/01/2011

Japanese researchers will launch a project this year to resurrect the long-extinct mammoth by using cloning technology to bring the ancient pachyderm back to life in around five years time, a report said.


This file photo shows a mammoth skeleton on a display in France. Japanese researchers will launch a project this year to resurrect the long-extinct mammoth by using cloning technology to bring the ancient pachyderm back to life in around five years time, a report said.

The researchers will try to revive the species by obtaining tissue this summer from the carcass of a mammoth preserved in a Russian research laboratory, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported.

"Preparations to realise this goal have been made," Akira Iritani, leader of the team and a professor emeritus of Kyoto University, told the mass-circulation daily.

Under the plan, the nuclei of mammoth cells will be inserted into an elephant's egg cells from which the nuclei have been removed to create an embryo containing mammoth genes, it said.

The embryo will then be inserted into an elephant's womb in the hope that the animal will eventually give birth to a baby mammoth. Researches hope to achieve their aim within five to six years, the Yomiuri said.

The team, which has invited a Russian mammoth researcher and two US elephant experts into the project, has already established a technique to extract DNA from frozen cells.

The researchers had once given up similar plans after nuclei in the cells of mammoth skin and muscle tissue were damaged by ice crystals and proved unusable.

However, another Japanese researcher, Teruhiko Wakayama of the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology, succeeded in cloning a mouse from the cells of another that had been kept in deep-freeze for 16 years.

Based on Wakayama's techniques, Iritani's team devised a method to extract the nuclei of mammoth eggs without damaging them.

"If a cloned embryo can be created, we need to discuss, before transplanting it into the womb, how to breed (the mammoth) and whether to display it to the public," Iritani said.

"After the mammoth is born, we will examine its ecology and genes to study why the species became extinct and other factors."

More than 80 percent of all mammoth finds have been dug up in the permafrost of the vast Sakha Republic in eastern Siberia. The most perfectly preserved remains of the Ice Age mammals still have hair and internal organs.

bangkokpost.com

[Moonraker]

Crazy shit

[Thormaturge]

Glen Beck will be all over this story.

[DroversDog]

Are they breeding it for eating? It would definitely fit the description of GMO food. Next would be the Dodo. They are supposed to be good eating.....

[steevee]

All the death and suffering on this planet and this is all these 'scientists' can contribute? Cancel their funding, useless fucks.