The scientists altered seven genes to give these mice woolly mammoth traits. Colossal Biosciences – View 2 Images –
Readers may be familiar with US startup Colossal Biosciences, which has made headlines in recent years for various mammoth-related genetics feats. Back in 2021, it announced its plans for “de-extinction” of the species, which was wiped off the planet some 4,000 years ago. Almost a year ago, to the day, the team announced its progress in understanding the mammoth’s genes, thanks to one of its closest extant relatives, the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). The genetics researchers have also expressed keen interest in bringing back the thylacine and the dodo.
And yes, we should point out the elephant (or mammoth) in the room: Tiny fluffy mice are a far cry from the enormous tusked beasts that roamed the Earth, before succumbing to a warming planet and human interaction. But they’re more than just rodents in winter coats.
“The Colossal Woolly Mouse marks a watershed moment in our de-extinction mission,” said Ben Lamm, Co-Founder and CEO of Colossal Biosciences. “By engineering multiple coldtolerant traits from mammoth evolutionary pathways into a living model species, we’ve proven our ability to recreate complex genetic combinations that took nature millions of years to create. This success brings us a step closer to our goal of bringing back the woolly mammoth.”
The team looked at 121 mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) and elephant genomes in order to identify specific genes that impacted hair and other traits that would have equipped the extinct animals with the physiological toolkit to survive in cold weather. Using CRISPR/Cas9 ribonucleoprotein (RNP) to edit seven genes in single-cell zygotes from lab mice to influence their coat’s length, color, texture, thickness and that distinctive mammoth-like “curl.” Another tweak resulted in changes in fat tissue, making the mice “built” for cold climates.
“The multiplexed editing strategies and mouse models established here provide a foundation for evaluating complex combinations of genetic modifications leading to the mammoth phenotype,” the researchers explained in their preprint paper. “Future work will evaluate additional mammoth-specific variants associated with other cold-adaptive traits.”
While the woolly mouse is a step towards the team’s lofty goal, it doesn’t take a geneticist to see there’s a big difference between small rodents with short life cycles and the huge, long-living mammals – to say the least. So if a mammoth is on your Christmas wish list, you might be disappointed come December 25.
“In my professional view, we won’t be seeing a woolly mammoth, a dodo, or a thylacine for decades, because it’s not a matter of changing seven genes, you would have to change thousands, and you have to do the reproductive biology too,” noted Professor Merlin Crossley, a molecular biologist at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). “Overall, it would be like stacking up ladders to get to the moon. But I have to hand it to this group of gifted scientists, they do keep reminding us of the power of genetic modifications.”
(To read the balance of this very interesting article, please visit: https://newatlas.com/science/woolly-mouse-mammoth/)
Source: Colossal Biosciences via Scimex/Businesswire
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