Mule cloned at USU dominating national racing circuit
The world’s first mule clones created with the help of a USU researcher have made their impact in the scientific community and are now leaving their mark on the racetracks.
Businessman and American Mule Racing Association President Don Jacklin helped fund the $1.2 million cloning project that formed the triplet clones Idaho Gem, Idaho Star and Utah Pioneer more than three years ago.
Utah State University professor Kenneth White and University of Idaho professors Gordon Wood and Dirk Vanderwall successfully produced the three clones after four years of failed attempts.
“It was a tremendous relief when the first one hit the ground,” White said.
Gem was born in Idaho in May of 2003, about one month before his exact genetic copy, Utah Pioneer.
Now a three-time blue-ribbon winner on the California mule-racing circuit, Gem has come a long way from the Petri dish he was formed in.
As the full brothers of Taz, Jacklin’s world-champion racing mule, Gem, Pioneer and Star are exceptional, not solely for being cloned animals, but for their strength and athletic ability as well, White said. In every race he’s been entered in, Gem has placed in the top three.
Star also competes in the northern California mule-racing circuit. Although he didn’t compete for a few weeks from having been “shin-bucked,” the equivalent of mule shin-splints, Star placed second on Sept. 21 at the Los Angeles County Fair – his first race since his injuries.
Pioneer is currently training in California, though White said he hopes to see all three racing within a year, as Pioneer has great champion potential.
Aside from the money won in betting circles from the clones’ success, Jacklin said, racing has been an opportunity to show the world that cloned mules are healthy and normal.
“They’re not freaks,” he said.
According to all the statistical data gathered, the animals behave and are as healthy as mules that are naturally conceived, White said. This is evidence to White that cloned mules have no greater risk for health problems than other mules.
The clones’ achievements have opened new areas of study for the Idaho and USU researchers. The men were able to observe the effects environmental factors had on the mules as the clones were raised by three different surrogate mothers for their first year of life.
“They all began to mimic their mothers,” Jacklin said.
The mules were eventually separated and were trained in different states by different handlers. Pioneer stayed in Idaho, Gem was trained in California and Star went to New Mexico.
Despite having the exact same genetic makeup as one another, the mules have very different characteristics, White said.
“I can tell you without a doubt that they have vastly different personalities,” he said.
Jacklin estimated that nature and nurture played equal roles in the mules’ development.
“My personal feeling is that it’s 50 percent genetic, 50 percent environmental,” Jacklin said.
Their research was a breakthrough in understanding cellular biology in horse cloning that may provide new understandings of cancer development in humans, according to a Project Idaho press release. Some of the techniques the researchers used stimulated cell-division, similar to the abnormal cell-division found in cancers.
By studying the process in reverse, Jacklin said he hopes the Idaho researchers will be able to find ways of reversing or preventing cancer. Jacklin said this aspect could very well prove to be the most important achievement made from the cloning process.
Jacklin initially got excited about the cloning business around 1996 when Dolly the sheep was successfully cloned in Scotland. He said he wanted to be the first in the world to clone a member of the equine species, and cloning a mule would have special significance as they are generally sterile.
Mules are a cross between a male donkey and female horse and because of this, cloning is the only means of reproduction for mules, according to the press release. The success of the project could have a great impact on the scientific community, as cells from endangered species could be used to build up their populations, the document stated.
Jacklin arranged for his champion mule’s parents to mate and the scientists harvested the fetus after 45 days and used its genetic material for cloning by creating 113 transfers that were put in mares. Of them, only three made it past 60 days with heartbeats. Those three later came to be Star, Gem and Pioneer.
“We were hoping for one,” White said. “It was a very big success.”
Jacklin said the mules’ futures will be successful, since the average racing mule can race up until it is 11 years old. Star and Gem are scheduled to compete this week at the Fresno County Fair in Fresno, Calif. Gem will race Sunday in the world championship.
“We should see photo finishes,” White said.
-mof@cc.usu.edu