Thais to clone Marbled Cats

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Thais to clone Marbled Cats

ANN/ The Nation

 

A Thai research team will begin trying to clone endangered Marbled Cats next

month and hopes to see the first cloned kittens born in February.

 

The team will use sample tissue from a Marbled Cat (Pardofelis marmorata)

from Nakhon Ratchasima Zoo, said its leader, Dr Rangsan Phanphai, a lecturer

in the Biotechnology Department at Suranaree University of Technology.

 

 

The tissue for the cloning process would be taken from the ear of one of the

cats and then grown in a lab to increase the number of cells, Rangsan said.

 

 

The team would inject DNA extracted from the cultured cells into eggs from

25 domestic cats, he said. First, however, the original DNA of the eggs

would be removed.

 

 

The eggs would then be implanted in surrogate mothers, which would be

domestic cats, Rangsat said, adding that the domestic cats would be given

hormones so that 15 to 20 eggs could be implanted into each one.

 

 

Rangsan said his university would buy a laparoscope worth Bt700,000 from

Germany, which would allow the team to remove and implant eggs from the

domestic cats without having to perform surgery.

 

 

Marbled Cats are about the size of domestic cats but their spotted fur

resembles that of a leopard. The species is endangered due to the loss of

its habitat, tropical forest, in Southeast Asia.