Playful pups conceived via in vitro fertilization for the first time

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Test tube puppies have arrived.

For the first time, a dog has given birth to a litter of puppies conceived by in vitro fertilization, scientists report December 9 in PLOS ONE.

The success could make it easier for wildlife conservationists to help such endangered species as the African painted dog or the Ethiopian wolf, says study coauthor Alexander Travis, a reproductive biologist at Cornell University. IVF could also help scientists one day rid dogs of heritable diseases, such as urinary stones in dalmatians: After creating an embryo in a dish, scientists could use gene editing to fix troublesome mutations.

IVF has long been used in humans, mice and other mammals. But doing it in dogs has stumped scientists for decades. Typically, scientists harvest eggs and sperm to create embryos in the lab, and then transfer them into a female. But conditions have to be just right for fertilization to occur.

Compared with humans, dogs’ eggs have to rest longer in the fallopian tubes before harvest, Travis and colleagues found. And for dog sperm to mature properly, it needs access to magnesium. By tweaking the typical technique, the team successfully created puppy embryos and transferred 19 into a beagle mother. She delivered seven live puppies.

Now 5 months old, the puppies are healthy and developing just like puppies conceived the old-fashioned way. “They are playful and energetic and get into everything,” says Travis, who adopted two.