What is today’s lesson about?

12.4.3.11
Explain the mechanism of cloning the
body
Assessment criteria

 Describe the production of natural

clones in plants and animals.
 Describe the production of artificial
clones of plants and animals.
 Explain how clones are made in plants
and animals and the issues
surrounding them.
Cloning

 Cloning is the production of

genetically identical organisms
 In plants cloning can occur naturally
by asexual reproduction.
▪ All cells are produced by mitosis from cells
that were originally part of the parent
plant
▪ All plants are genetically identical to the
parent plant and each other.
Asexual reproduction

 Advantages  Disadvantages
▪ Quick ▪ No genetic variety
▪ All offspring have the ▪ Does not allow for
genetic information natural selection
to enable them to ▪ Unable to adapt to
survive in the environmental
environment conditions.
English Elm

 The English Elm only

reproduces by
suckering
▪ The growth of new trees
from the roots or
meristem tissue in the
trunks
 As all English Elms are
genetically identical
they are all susceptible
to the fungus, Dutch
elm disease
Disadvantages of plant cloning

 Susceptible to disease
 Unable to adapt to climate change
 Loss of genetic variation
Cloning in Animals
 Reproductive  Non-reproductive
cloning
▪ Cloning to produce
a whole organism
▪ Examples
▪ Embryo transplantation
▪ Dolly the sheep
cloning
▪ Using cloning to
produce cells
▪ Examples
▪ Stem cell research
▪ Production of cells,
tissues or organs
▪ Naturally done for
growth and repair
Non-reproductive cloning in
animals
 Non-reproductive cloning involves the
production of genetically identical cells
▪ 1951 – HeLa cells
▪ Cancerous cells which divide repeatedly in culture
solution
▪ Used in medical research
▪ Stem cells
▪ Totipotent or pluripotent
▪ Undifferentiated cells that are able to differentiate into
specialised cells
▪ Embryonic stem cells – ethical arguments
Possibilities of non-reproductive
cloning
 Potential future uses include
▪ Regeneration of heart tissue following a
heart attack
▪ Repair of nervous tissue
▪ Repairing the spinal cord
 Stem cells taken from the patient to
produce the tissues mean that tissue
rejection by the immune system is less
likely
Reproductive cloning in
animals
 Two methods of artificially cloning
animals
▪ Splitting embryos for embryo
transplantation
▪ All offspring are identical to each other but not
to the surrogate mothers
▪ Nuclear transfer using enucleated eggs
▪ Nucleus is taken from a differentiated cell in an
adult, and placed into a enucleated egg cell
Dolly the Sheep

 Dolly the sheep is

believed to have
suffered from a
serious health
problem which
developed at a
relatively early age
Artificial Cloning in animals

 Advantages  Disadvantages
▪ High value animals ▪ Animal welfare
▪ Rare animals can be ▪ Genetic uniformity,
cloned loss of genetic
▪ Quickly reproduced variation
▪ Uncertainties of
health of cloned
animals
Moral and ethical Arguments
▪ Is it right to clone an aging pet?
▪ Is it right to clone an animal which leads to a
cure for human diseases?
Student work

 Complete the cut  Use research to

and stick on how complete the
Dolly the sheep was ‘Blueprint of life’
created (8 mins). worksheet (30
 Complete the mins).
cloning – right or
wrong sheet (10
mins).