What is a clone?

The word "clone" for the last 15 years has firmly entered our language. What is a clone?

This term comes from the Greek word,literally translated into Russian as a "twig", "escape", "offspring." Clones are the offspring, which originated from parent organisms in an incomplete way and have a complete genetic similarity with them.

How do clones appear?

When the appearance of offspring by crossing maleand female individuals of the same species (sexually), fertilization of the egg takes place, during which the nuclei of male and female sex cells merge. The nuclei of these cells contain the DNA of the father and mother, responsible for maintaining the inherited traits. Thus, the new organism receives hereditary traits of both the father and mother.

When cloning, the nucleus of the egg is removed, the nucleus of the cloned organism is placed in the egg, and the offspring receives exactly the same DNA as one of its ancestors.

Cloning in nature and science

Cloning is the only way to multiply bacteria. Plants propagating vegetatively (from shoots, roots), also reproduce their clones.

Natural clones of man are identical twins.

Mass interest in cloning appeared after1996, when the Scottish scientists were cloning the now-famous Dolly lamb. And the animal - the donor of the cell, the genetic copy of which later became Dolly, at the time of the experiment was no longer alive.

In the modern world, the attitude toward cloning is ambiguous. Some countries conduct research in this area, in some countries cloning is prohibited.

The meaning of many other terms you can learn from the special section Definitions.