…and this is a 
Snuppy is a real clone!
Category: Genetics • Organisms • Reproduction • Science
Posted on: March 9, 2006 2:48 PM, by PZ Myers
Remember Snuppy, the cloned puppy? He's been living under a cloud for a while now, since one of his creators was Woo-Suk Hwang, the Korean scientist who was found to have faked data and exploited his workers, and there was concern that perhaps the dog cloning experiment was also tainted.
Put those fears to rest. Two groups of researchers have independently analyzed Snuppy and its putative clone parent, and both agree that it is most likely a clone. The nuclear markers between the two were identical, while mitochondrial markers were different—exactly what you'd expect in this kind of clone, and not what you'd see from simple twins, for instance, or if someone had faked the samples.
Parker HG, Kruglyak L, Ostrander EA (2006) DNA analysis of a putative dog clone. Nature 440:E1-E2.
Seoul National University Investigation Committee, Lee JB, Park C (2006) Verification that Snuppy is a clone. Nature 440:E2-E3.
Comments
Here's the World War I flying ace, quaffing root beer in a small cafe in the French countryside...with his genetically identical mechanic!
Posted by: CCP | March 9, 2006 2:55 PM
Clone or no clone, he's a cutey pie!
Posted by: Melanie Reap | March 9, 2006 2:56 PM
Forgive me but I have to ask: if there are clones, why are there still originals??
Posted by: Marine Geologist | March 9, 2006 3:12 PM
"Forgive me but I have to ask: if there are clones, why are there still originals??"
Uh, why wouldn't there be? Cloning doesn't mean death for the original. It's simply making a genetic copy of the original.
Posted by: Steve Sutton | March 9, 2006 3:25 PM
Steve: I assumed that Marine Geologist was lampooning the creationist argument that evolution must be wrong since apes still exist.
Posted by: Lemony | March 9, 2006 3:28 PM
You're all wrong. That small dog to the right isn't a clone- it is a pygmy and/or dwarf, and therefore disproves your Darwino-atheistic-commie worldview!
Posted by: MJ Memphis | March 9, 2006 4:27 PM
Could somebody who's more biologically savvy than me explain Snuppy's scientific significance? Did we learn much from Snuppy that we didn't know from Dolly?
I seem to recall reading something a few years ago about how the organisms successfully cloned up to that time lacked didn't have the kind of machinery we have for sorting chromosomes during cell division, and that the cloning process seemed to mess up that machinery.
That makes me wonder if I'm remembering that correctly, and whether cloning Snuppy involved solving that problem, or it's still a problem for cloning humans. (And what else... how general is current cloning technology?)
Posted by: Paul W. | March 9, 2006 4:28 PM
Something I faintly recall: They had to go through thousands of attempts to make Dolly, didn't they? How many did it take for Snuppy?
Oh, and Snuppy isn't developing super powers or a psychic link to the original, so there's no way he could be a clone.
Posted by: BronzeDog | March 9, 2006 5:08 PM
Did we learn much from Snuppy that we didn't know from Dolly?
I would assume so, given the various levels of difficulty in cloning different mammals. Last I heard, there was some factor of primate cells that made the Dolly method inapplicable (Raelian triumphs notwithstanding). Cytologists can correct me if I'm wrong.
Posted by: Grumpy | March 9, 2006 5:43 PM
Apparently it has been very difficult to clone dogs in the past and snuppy was the first of its kind (I think, could be wrong). I'm not immediately familiar with the reasons behind why this is the case however, but it was fairly special compared to other mammals like sheep.
Cloning animals of any sort is difficult, time consuming and immensely frustrating for the most part even with optimal conditions. That they succeeded at all is a fairly good thing.
Posted by: Joseph O'Donnell | March 9, 2006 7:59 PM
Wow. So the man wasn't a complete charlatan and was actually a pretty good scientist. What the hell was he thinking?
Posted by: D | March 10, 2006 1:04 AM
Common sense tells us that cloned animals must be identical. It's obvius that this isn't the case since the dog on the right is a lot smaller. If they don't see that right away, well then I guess those scientists aren't as smart as me, are they?
Posted by: Staffan S | March 10, 2006 3:35 AM
Besides, so what if you can clone it? It's still a dog.
Posted by: Staffan S | March 10, 2006 3:46 AM
So, when do Snuppy and all of his cloned buddies take over the world for Doctor Evil?
Much more importanly, should I be buying dog food contracts on the futures markets?
-jcr
Posted by: John C. Randolph | March 10, 2006 5:05 AM
does this mean South Korean biosciences aren't going to the dogs, after all, or rather that they are ?
Posted by: Nomen Nescio | March 10, 2006 6:50 AM
And soon, my plans for dominating the world with evil dog-men will come to fruition.
Posted by: BronzeDog | March 10, 2006 7:43 AM
Lemony, you assume correctly. I didn't think my comment was that subtle but I guess I should have put a smiley face in there somewhere.
PZ, sorry for causing this thread to degenerate but I have to ask another question: is this an example of "From goo to you via the test tube??" :-)
Posted by: Marine Geologist | March 10, 2006 8:48 AM
I remember that Dolly was said to be the same age as her source sheep when she was born -- she wasn't born mature, but she supposedly was born "old" in the aging sense, and had a shorter life expectancy than an ordinary newborn would have. Is this generally true of clones?
Posted by: John Emerson | March 10, 2006 3:14 PM