Frog cloning by nuclear transfer (Gurdon)
Clonación de ranas por transferencia nuclear (Gurdon)
- Date
- 1962 · confidence high
- Place
- University of Oxford, Oxford, England, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- John B. Gurdon
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Gurdon transplanted nuclei from Xenopus tadpole intestinal cells into enucleated eggs and obtained normal tadpoles. He showed that the nucleus of a differentiated cell retains all the genetic information, and it is the direct antecedent of Dolly and cell reprogramming.
Robert Briggs and Thomas King (Philadelphia, 1952) had performed the first nuclear transfer in Rana pipiens with blastula nuclei; Gurdon achieved it with nuclei from differentiated cells. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012.
What it led to
- cloning of mammals by somatic cell nuclear transfer (Dolly, 1996)
- cell reprogramming and iPS cells (2012 Nobel with Yamanaka)
- the theory of genetic equivalence of cell nuclei