UTSA researcher collaborates on NIH grant to study cloned mice

(June 20, 2002)--University of Texas at San Antonio Professor of Biology John McCarrey and a researcher from the University of Hawaii were recently awarded a $2.25 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate genetic and epigenetic reprogramming in cloned mice over a five year period. Researchers hope the study will provide new insight into the efficacy and safety of cloning.

McCarrey's laboratory will focus on epigenetics -- mechanisms that affect genetic programming without changing DNA structure -- and particularly on the programming of germ cells, the cells that develop into ova or sperm. McCarrey, who has significant experience analyzing genetic and epigenetic programming in germ cells in normal mice, will analyze similar characteristics in the germ cells of cloned mice. Epigenetic mechanisms are required for successful embryonic development.

His research will focus on the reprogramming process and the changes that affect gene functioning. Cloning, or replicating a living organism, depends on the successful transfer of genetic information from a donor cell to form a new individual, and the successful reprogramming of that genetic information so that it can direct the development of the new embryo that results from this process.

McCarrey and his collaborators suspect that for a cloned embryo to develop normally, the donor nucleus must undergo rapid reprogramming of gene functions with a low frequency of mutations. The researchers will try to identify relationships between various epigenetic factors and/or mutation rates and survival rates in cloned embryos. These studies will also investigate the extent to which genetic or epigenetic programming abnormalities in cloned mice can be corrected when these animals are naturally mated and produce offspring.

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