Dog clone genome nearly identical to donor DNA

Snuppy's genetic material and telomere length copied too

The whole genome of Snuppy (left) is nearly identical to genetic material of the animal’s DNA donor, Tai (right).

Goo Jang and Byeongchun Lee

October 22, 2013 at 5:41 pm

Snuppy, the world’s first cloned dog, has a genome that closely matches the DNA of his donor dog, Tai.

Scientists from TheragenEtex, Seoul National University and the Genome Research Foundation sequenced and compared the dogs’ entire genomes. T he results appear October 21 in Scientific Reports.

The study is the first to date to confirm that the entire genome of an animal clone is almost identical to that of its donor. The results also show that telomere length — a predictor of life span — is about the same in the dogs.

Based on the results, scientists could use cloned animals to study environmental and other epigenetic changes that alter the way animals look and behave, the authors argue.