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Chinese scientists have cloned five gene-edited macaque monkeys, the researchers reported in two papers in National Science Review on January 24.
These clones were made though the somatic cell nuclear transfer method that was used to produce the first primate clones, also macaques, announced roughly a year ago. But in the new report, the monkeys’ genomes were first edited using CRISPR-Cas9 to show symptoms of sleep disorders by knocking out BMAL1, an important gene for circadian regulation.
The researchers edited multiple fertilized monkey embryos to recapitulate circadian sleep disorders. Then the scientists picked the monkey with “correct gene editing and most severe disease phenotypes” for cloning, according to Qiang Sun, one of the papers’ authors and director of the Nonhuman Primate Research Facility at the Chinese Academy of Science’s Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai, in a statement.
The signs of disease the researchers observed in the cloned ...
