Did you know that a Dallas company called Colossal Bioscience is working to bring an animal last seen 4000 years ago back from extinction? This animal is none other than the woolly mammoth. So far, scientists at Colossal Bioscience have been experimenting with mice because mice share a significant amount of genetic similarity with elephants, which are the closest living relatives to the woolly mammoth.
Scientists first collected DNA from woolly mammoth remains and looked for specific genes that cause traits such as thick fur, fat storage, and cold resistance. Then, they used a tool called CRISPR that allowed them to insert woolly mammoth genes into the DNA of mice. As the mice grew with the woolly mammoth genes mixed with their own, they began to develop traits of the woolly mammoth. An example of this trait involves a change in the mice’s fur, such as thickness or color. Colossal’s chief science officer, Beth Shapiro, stated, “This is exciting to us because it confirms that the genes and gene families that we identified using our comparative genomics approach really do cause an animal to have a woolly coat and a golden coat and longer hairs.” Colossal Bioscience was successful in giving mice the thick hair of a mammoth by inserting the genes into the DNA.
The next step is to conduct a behavioral test for cold tolerance. Woolly mammoths were covered in two layers of fur and had changes in genes linked to hair growth and fat storage that helped them adapt to the cold environment. It is still unknown whether the mice are cold-tolerant or not. In addition, the number of genes needed to engineer a mammoth-like elephant is far greater than that needed for the mice.
Colossal Bioscience is currently working on bringing back the woolly mammoth, but has plans to later revive the Tasmanian tiger, the northern white rhinoceros, and the dodo bird. In our not so distant future, we may see many animals brought back from extinction. Reintroducing the woolly mammoth could help the environment by helping repair ecosystems from where they once lived.
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