• Question: Is it easier to clone a smaller animal, rather than a bigger one? And if so, why? :)

    Asked by louliew to David, Rebecca, Simon, Verity, Wei on 23 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Rebecca Handley

      Rebecca Handley answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Yes and no. How easy it is to clone something depends on a few things, the main factors are the size of the animals genome or the ‘length of its DNA’ and how much is know about that animals DNA. For example genomes (DNA length) are measured in Mega Bases (Mb), a mouse has a DNA length of 45 Mb compared to humans who have a DNA length of 3000 Mb. This makes it much easier to clone a mouse as there is less DNA, as there is less DNA it also makes it easier to find out what each bit of DNA does. So in that case it is easier to clone a mouse. BUT smaller size doesnt always mean a shorter length of DNA! Animals that change shape, like frogs who were once tadpoles, and butterflies who were once caterpillars have much longer DNA than you would expect for their size…so they are harder to clone!

    • Photo: Verity Nye

      Verity Nye answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      I think Rebecca’s already answered this nicely.

    • Photo: Simon Trent

      Simon Trent answered on 23 Jun 2011:

      I was going to say the same really, the size of the actual animal doesnt necessarily match the size of its genome (all of the animals genetic info)

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