World's first cloned horse born to its genetic twin

9.00am

LONDON - Italian scientists said on Wednesday they had created the world's first cloned horse from an adult cell taken from the horse who gave birth to her.

Prometea, a healthy female, weighed in at 36kg when she was born during an natural delivery on May 28, 2003 in Italy after a normal, full-term pregnancy.

Although sheep, mice, cats, cattle, goats and pigs have already been cloned, Prometea is the first animal known to be carried and born by the mother from which she was cloned.

"This is the first horse that has been cloned from an adult cell. She has been carrying herself, so the newborn is the twin of the mother that carried the pregnancy," said Dr Cesare Galli, of the Laboratory of Reproductive Technology, a non-profit research organisation in Cremona, Italy.

Until now it had been thought that a pregnancy would depend on the mother's immune system recognising the foetus as something different from itself.

"People would not have expected it to be possible," said Galli, referring to the mother giving birth to her own clone.

Galli and his team reported their success in the science journal Nature.

Named after Prometheus, who in Greek mythology was punished for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to humans, the foal was created through nuclear transfer -- the same technique used for Dolly the sheep, the world's first cloned mammal.

Galli and his team removed a skin cell from the mother and fused it to an egg from which the nucleus had been removed. After the activated egg was grown in the laboratory it was replaced in the horse from which it had been cloned.

The scientists started out with more 800 manipulated eggs using male and female cells. Twenty-two developed into seven-day-old embryos and 17 were transferred into nine horses. Four pregnancies resulted but Prometea was the only live animal.

"Our result adds the horse to the list of mammals that have so far been successfully cloned from an adult somatic cell," Galli and his team said in their report.

In addition to the scientific achievement, he believes Prometea could lead to cloning of champion geldings, castrated horses.

"There is an interest in cloning those animals because they cannot reproduce anymore because they were castrated at a young age. A good proportion of sporting champions are geldings," said Galli.

If regulations in the breeding industry allowed cloning, it would be an immediate possibility.

"You would make a copy of an animal that cannot reproduce so you could use it as a stallion to serve mares," he explained.

Galli said cloning sporting animals would not guarantee generations of cloned champions, because many factors, including character and the interaction with people who train them, were important for producing top racing horses.

Galli and his team have already cloned bulls and cows.

- REUTERS