65 ASSESSMENT OF LIVE OFFSPRING SIRED BY A SOMATIC CELL NUCLEAR TRANSFER BULL, STARBUCK II
Bibliographic record
Abstract
It appears that overt phenotypic abnormalities observed in some domestic animal clones are not transmitted to their progeny, suggesting that epigenetic and genetic alterations are reset in the germline of clones. Still, little is known about the normalcy and performance of the offspring from cloned animals. The current study monitored Holstein heifers sired by a cloned bull, Starbuck II, from weaning to puberty. Genomic stability was assessed by telomere length status and chromosomal assessments. Growth parameters, blood profiles and physical exams were performed and the results were compared to those for a group of control heifers with matched breed and ages born from normal cows located in the Ponsonby Research Station (Guelph, Ontario, Canada). Once circulating progesterone concentrations were determined to be >1 ng/mL, the heifers were monitored by ultrasound to investigate follicular dynamics. Statistical analysis was performed using descriptive statistics, paired t -test, and a Tukey-Kramer post-hoc test for multiple comparisons. Compared to controls during the observation period, progeny sired by the cloned bull did not show any significant ( P > 0.05) difference as in weight (mean ± SEM) (231.5 ± 29.4 vs. 237.6 ± 31.0 kg), length (160.6 ± 13.0 vs. 172.4 ± 2.7 cm), height (105.3 ± 3.72 vs. 95.5 ± 11.0 cm) and temperature (39.06 ± 0.01 vs. 39.16 ± 0.0°C). However, the cases displayed a relaxed behavior and were easier to handle than controls. This was reflected by significant differences in heart rates (83.3 ± 3.3 vs. 101.3 ± 2.6 bpm) ( P = 0.005) and respiratory rates (35.4 ± 2.7 vs. 46.7 ± 3.3 rpm) ( P = 0.04) for progeny and controls, respectively. Blood profiles were within normal ranges for both groups. External and internal genitalia were normal at palpation and ultrasound exam. Both groups began puberty at the expected age (10-12 months) and weight (318 to 365 kg). Follicular dynamics and progesterone concentrations corresponded to normal adult cows and were similar between groups after puberty. Telomere lengths of spermatozoa and blood samples from Starbuck II (22.23 kb and 14.19 kb, respectively) were not statistically different from normal telomere length profiles for non-cloned cattle. Telomere lengths of Starbuck II's progeny (22.52 ± 0.38 kb, n = 32) were no different compared to age-matched controls (22.20 ± 0.56 kb, n = 20). In addition, the progeny exhibited a normal karyotype in their peripheral blood leukocytes (83.14 ± 5.22% normal diploid cells). In summary, heifers sired by a cloned bull have normal chromosomal stability, growth, physical, hematological and reproductive parameters compared to normal heifers. Also, these heifers had a better response with lower stress to regular handling and restraining procedures. This work was funded by OCAG, OMAF, and CRC.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".