Sach-Gaurav:World’s First Cloned Buffalo Born In The Field At An Indian Dairy Farm

Abstract

Recently, the ICAR-Central Institute for Research on Buffaloes has produced world’s first cloned buffalo in the field, named Sach-Gaurav, on 22 December 2017. In addition to being the world’s first cloned buffalo born in the field, this is also India’s first cloned calf of Assamese buffalo; earlier only Murrah breed of buffaloes was cloned. A small tail tissue of Assamese buffalo was airlifted from the College of Veterinary Science, Guwahati (which is 2000 km away from our cloning laboratory) to establish the cultures of donor cells. This proves that distant and remote animals can be cloned. A singlet method of embryo reconstruction has been used, with one recipient oocyte instead of two (a standard Indian version of animal cloning method). It is a step towards simplification of animal cloning technique, and this approach can reduce the mitochondrial heteroplasmy in cloned calves. Ovaries of Murrah buffalo were used as a source of recipient oocytes, indicating that oocytes from one breed of buffaloes can reprogramme donor cells of other breeds. Also, the Murrah buffalo can serve as a surrogate mother for other buffalo breeds.