The first test-tube embryos of
rhinoes have been produced in Italy by the same team led by
Cesare Galli that cloned the first bull Galileo and the first
horse Prometea, according to an article in Nature
Communications.
The embryos may pave the way for saving animals on the brink
of extinction like the northern white rhino, of which only two
females survive.
In the Cremona lab of the Avantea group, specialised in
assisted reproduction for large animals, researchers grew 30
eggs taken from southern white rhino females, of which there are
more than 21,000 animals.
Some 17 were fertilised with the sperm of the same
sub-species, while the other 13 were fertilized with the frozen
sperm of dead northern white rhinoes.
Seven embryos were this obtained, blocked at day 12 of their
development.
Some of them have been frozen, awaiting transplant into the
wombs of surrogate mothers, while others have been used to
obtain stem cells, precious for testing techniques to produce
new gametes permitting an increase in the genetic diversity of
rhinoes.
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