India clones world's first buffalo

Kounteya Sinha
14 February 2009
The Times of India, (c) 2009 The Times of India Group

NEW DELHI: Samrupa, the world's first cloned buffalo calf, was to be India's answer to Dolly the sheep. But unlike Dolly, the first mammal cloned 13 years ago, who lived for seven years, Samrupa succumbed to a lung infection on Wednesday night, five days after it was born.

Now, scientists at Karnal's National Dairy Research Institute, who in a major breakthrough on February 6 created Samrupa, say the next cloned buffalo offspring is expected in May.

Samrupa's one-year-old surrogate mother belonged to the Murrah breed, Haryana's pride and the world's best-known milking buffalo, capable of producing 35 kg of milk a day.

Speaking to TOI from Karnal, scientist Dr S K Singla, who was part of the six-member team that created Samrupa, said, "We have been working on developing the calf for the past four years. However, we could not save her."

Dr Singla added, "We are, however, happy that we gave birth to a cloned buffalo using an indigenous cloning mechanism. The next birth is expected in May and another in June."

The breakthrough has put India among a select few countries capable of cloning mammals.

Scientists from NDRI's Animal Biotechnology Centre developed a landmark technique - Hand-guided Cloning Technique - which the scientists said was much simpler and an advanced modification of the conventional cloning technique which was used to create Dolly.

"This new technique is less demanding in terms of equipment, time and skill. We didn't need sophisticated tools like micromanipulators but conducted the surgery with a simple hand blade," Dr Singla said.

In this technique, the oocytes (female eggs involved in reproduction) isolated from abattoir ovaries were matured in-vitro (outside the womb and in a lab), was treated with enzymes to clear its outer coating and then isolated with the help of a handheld fine blade.

Then, somatic cells from the ear of a donor buffalo was electro fused with the oocytes, grown in the laboratory for a week and the resultant embryos were transferred to recipient buffaloes for the production of the calf of desired gender.

"One of the biggest advantages of this technique is that the calf of desired sex can be obtained. If we take cells from the ear of a female buffalo, the offspring will be a female. Each somatic cell isolated is capable of creating one new life. The surrogate mother gave birth to Samrupa in two months time," Dr Singla said.

Congratulating the team, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) director general Mangala Rai said the new technology would help immensely in increasing milk production, thanks to faster multiplication of superior cell quality.

NDRI director A K Srivastava said, "In India, we have the largest population of buffaloes in the world. However, the percentage of elite animals is very low." Dr Singla added, "Without cloning, one buffalo would have given birth to a single offspring every year. Through cloning, we can get surrogate mothers to give birth to 40-50 calves every year."

Of the total production of milk of India, about 53% comes from buffaloes, 43% from cows and 4% from goats and sheep.

The team, which also included Dr R S Manik, Dr M S Chauhan, Dr P Palta, Dr R A Shah and Dr A George, is now planning to publish the breakthrough in scientific journals.
Scientists say cloning may become a viable tool for preserving endangered species. While India has been trying to recreate the cheetah, in January, scientists from Spain announced the cloning of the Pyrenean Ibex, a wild mountain goat which was declared extinct in 2000.

Using DNA from skin samples kept in liquid nitrogen, scientists managed to clone the ibex from domestic goat egg-cells. The newborn ibex died shortly after birth, also due to physical defects in its lungs.