Recently, the "cloned Tibetan sheep" cultivated by the team of Northwest A&F University and the Animal Disease Prevention and Control Center of Xining City, Qinghai Province was successfully born in Qinghai. This is the first time in China that somatic cell cloning technology is used to restore and preserve the germplasm of the excellent individuals in the existing Tibetan sheep population, and is used for the efficient breeding of improved Tibetan sheep.
Newborn cloned Tibetan sheep weighs 34 kg, clinically examined healthy. At present, two cloned Tibetan sheep have been born in the base.
Tibetan sheep breeding industry is one of the main income of farmers and herdsmen on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, but the breeding efficiency of Tibetan sheep is not high, and the utilization rate of excellent breeding rams is low, which has a great impact on the development of the industry. The team of Northwest A&F University, together with the Xining Animal Disease Prevention and Control Center, with the support of the Qinghai Provincial Department of Science and Technology, has been committed to the research of yak and Tibetan sheep embryo engineering application technology since 2018. Ora sheep is a type of Tibetan sheep with a strong physique and tall limbs. In this study, 3 excellent breeding rams and 1 ewe from the Herdsmen Professional Cooperative of Atosuhuola Sheep Breeding Farm in Henan Mongolian Autonomous County, Qinghai Province were selected, including the top Ora sheep weighing more than 400 catties and winning many awards in the breeding ram competition.
The initial pregnancy rate of the 43 recipient sheep transferred in this cloned embryo transfer reached 581%, 120-day pregnancy rate reached 372%, a batch of lambs will be born one after another.
Su Jianmin, a professor at Northwest A&F University, said that through cloning technology, the genetic information of high-quality breeding sheep can be 100% replicated, and its genetic resources can be fully utilized and expanded, so as to increase the income of local farmers and herdsmen, and provide scientific and technological strength for the development of local seed industry.
*: CCTV News.