A Key Stem-Cell Breakthrough Could Allow Mammoths to be Cloned

A biotech company that is working toward the Jurassic Park-style cloning of woolly mammoths has announced that they have made a crucial breakthrough in producing elephant stem cells, a key step in recreating the furry pachyderms, a species that has been extinct for over four thousand years.

According to a statement released by Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences, the company has managed to produce a type of stem cell called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from an Asian elephant—the closest living relative to woolly mammoths—for the first time. iPSCs are essentially blank cells that can be reprogrammed to produce any other type of cell that can be found in the body; these cells will be vital in researching various genetic avenues and differences between modern elephants and their extinct brethren by using lab-grown cells, rather than harvesting material from live animals; with only 52,000 living individuals of the species Elephas maximus left, gathering such material is both difficult and invasive, so using lab-grown cells is a much more desirable alternative.

Although the initial individual mammoths to be born would be done through surrogate Asian elephant mothers, Colossal’s goal is to reintroduce what the company describes as “a cold-resistant elephant with all of the core biological traits of the Woolly Mammoth” into their former habitat in Russia’s Arctic region, with the hopes that the large animals will help combat climate change by trampling snow underfoot, helping to preserve the permafrost underneath and the methane trapped within it.

iPSCs will also allow Colossal’s researchers to explore the genetic adaptations that came about in mammoths, such as their fat deposits, spiraling tusks and shaggy fur, components that allowed the creatures to dominate colder landscapes; in contrast, their modern counterparts have adapted to warmer climates, and wouldn’t survive in regions previously inhabited by mammoths and mastodons.

The roadblock that previously prevented Colossal’s researchers from producing elephant stem cells was a protein that is typically responsible for suppressing tumor growth; while this gene is typically extremely beneficial, its pathway is unusually complex in elephants, causing it to prevent replication of the iPSCs.

“One of the things that we had to overcome for elephant cells is that they do have this expansive TP53 pathway,” explained Colossal Biosciences lead mammoth researcher, Eriona Hysolli. “We had to suppress this pathway via two means in order to get these iPSCs, so we had to go through a multistep process in order to achieve them.”

The production of iPSCs will also allow researchers to glean new insights into how elephant embryos develop: while producing a viable embryo at this stage is no longer a challenge, there is still much that isn’t known about elephants’ 22-month long gestation process, the next hurdle in producing a healthy calf.

“Those methods are pretty challenging and haven’t been developed yet, but it is only a matter of time,” Hysolli stated.