Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Is it possible to produce clones of animals? Explain how this can occur both naturally and artificially.

To add to the previous answer, if an organism reproduces sexually, the offspring will never be a clone of its parents. That is because if a sperm and egg nucleus fuse combine DNA, the offspring will have genes from both parents. Therefore, in sexual reproduction, due to independent assortment and recombination of gametes at fertilization, the offspring will display characteristics from each parent and can never be a clone of one. 


However, one additional way of producing a clone naturally is when identical twins are produced. One sperm nucleus fuses with one egg nucleus to form a zygote. Mitotic divisions occur forming an embryo. If the embryo splits into two clusters of cells, these will be clones with the same identical blueprint. However, due to environmental influences on genes, even identical twins have slight differences. For example, their fingerprints are unique.

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