The recovery of extinct species could be increasing Siberia About 4,000 years ago.
The finding, even without publishing in a scientific journal reviewed by peers, comes from the Bioengineering Company based in Texas, Colossal Biosciences, created in 2014 by the “father” of the great advances in genetic edition of recent times, the geneticist of Harvard University, George Church and the technological businessman Ben Lamm.
Both founded the company with one objective: to deduct the Lanudo mammoth to, in the scientific process to achieve it, find solutions to combat climate change.
A decade later they already treasure an important milestone: having created mice with the same hair as mammoths, as described by an article that they share this Tuesday in the repository for Biorxiv prepublics.
Mammoth features mice
Researchers have studied DNA samples of 59 mammoth corpses that have remained frozen and relatively well preserved up to 1.2 million years in Siberian tundra, until a high quality genome of the species is achieved.
They have then compared the mammoth genome with that of the Asian elephant, their closest living relative, through the analysis of genetic samples of 62 specimens.
Researchers have identified up to ten genes of mammoths that influence hair development and other cold adaptation features that do not possess their current relatives, Asian elephants.
The team used three types of genetic editing technologies to modify these mouse genes, in some cases deactivating them and in others altering them to reproduce genetic variants that allowed mammoths to survive in the icy temperatures of their time.
Among these modifications, the inactivation of the MC1R gene, for example, changes the dark color of the hair and makes it yellowish or reddish like that of the mammoth.
The inactivation of the mouse FGF5 gene causes hair to grow up to a length three times longer than normal; and that of the Fam83G, FZD6, TGM3, ASTN2, KRT25, TGFA and KRT27 genes alters the hair growth pattern, which begins to curve, with curls, and to become thicker, as the mammoth had.
The final appearance of the edited rodent is that of a tanudo mouse, with a coarse, long, curly and red -haired texture, similar to the one that the mammoth had, and more prepared to withstand the low temperatures than other specimens of not genetically modified mouse mouse.
The researchers have also edited the FABP2 gene, which participates in lipid metabolism and that is supposed to contribute to sufficient body fat storage to isolate themselves from the cold and nourish themselves during the long winters. However, they report that the wardly mice with this last gene still do not accumulate more weight than their unmodified brothers.
Next challenge: mammoth embryos
“We have demonstrated that we can now design and rebuild complex genetic adaptations, with deep implications for the future of multigenic imxtation and engineering,” says George Church, in a statement by Colossal Biosciences.
“The Lanudo de Colossal mouse marks a milestone in our mission of de -sextinction. Genetic engineering has made it possible to edit features of cold tolerance already extinct. This success brings us one more step to our goal of recovering the Lanudo Mammut, ”says Lamm, the co -founder of the company.
“While we hope to deduce the Lanudo mammoth we already have a woolly mouse. There are researchers who do not give stitch without thread. They are able to carry out and complete the most fantasy and extravagant ideas that we can imagine. Ideas that the rest of mortals rule out by impossible or unfeasible, ”says Lluís Montoliu, a researcher at the National Biotechnology Center (CNB-CSIC), in a Science Media Center Spanish reaction to this study.
Montoliu, who does not participate in the work, states that there are still about 500,000 changes between the genome of the Lanudo mammut and that of the Asian elephant that Colossal researchers must be incorporated through editing techniques, using as a starting material Asian elephant cells cultivated in the laboratory.
“Then they must rebuild mammoth embryos using Asian elephant and centers of the cells edited by nuclear transfer (cloning) and gestar them, surely in some extrauterine system, which is yet to be invented. For this, the existing systems will have to be improved today that allow to maintain gestation and growth outside the maternal uterus in lambs and premature babies, ”explains Montoliu.