A research team at Seoul National University led by Professor Lee Byeong-chun, said that two cloned female dogs- Bona and Hope- were artificially inseminated with Snuppy's sperm last March. The two two-year-old dogs were discovered to be pregnant on March 16 and 20, respectively. In May, Bona gave birth to four puppies and Hope gave birth to six puppies.
Another First in Cloning
Dogs are considered to be the most difficult animals to clone because they have an unusual reproductive biology compared to other animals. The birth of these puppies is the first case in which a cloned male and female dog reproduced.
The Parents: Snuppy, Bona, and Hope
Snuppy was born on April 24, 2005, as the world's first cloned dog. He was created by a team of scientists at Seoul National University (SNU) in Seoul, S. Korea. The team included controversial stem cell researcher Hwang Woo-suk and Lee Byeong-chun. An Afghan Hound, Snuppy is short for "SNU" and "puppy." Snuppy's cloning was published in the journal Nature.
A total of 167 reconstructed embryos were implanted into 12 surrogate mothers to produce the three living clones in 2006-- Bona, Hope, and Peace. They were cloned for the purpose of being Snuppy's girlfriends. Only Bona and Hope were "matched" with Snuppy.
The Offspring of Cloned Parents
Initially three male and seven female puppies were born, but one died soon after birth. The death of the puppy was somewhat expected because the natural death of puppies is 30%, the researchers said.
The research team named the puppies Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, River, Sky, Samsik, Star, Ocean, and Samsoon. The DNA of the puppies were sent to a separate research lab and were confirmed to be the offspring of Snuppy and the two cloned mothers. Lee explained that the birth of the puppies proves that cloned dogs have normal reproduction systems.
Details on the birth of the puppies were first presented at the International Conference on Agricultural Research, in August 2008 in Greece.
Dog Cloning Research On the Roll
The dog-cloning research team at Seoul National University is busy cloning various types of dogs for both research and commercial purposes.
The team recently collaborated with RNL Bio, a biotech company, to clone a pitbull terrier for Bernann McKinney, a woman living in California. McKinney had saved ear tissue from her dead pet Booger and reportedly paid $150,000 to have her former pet cloned.
Prior to this, the SNU team also cloned narcotics-sniffing dogs for the Korea Customs Service and cancer-sniffing dogs.
