As if there weren’t enough of them in the world already, scientists have
succeeded in cloning flies. The alike fruit flies are the first insects ever
cloned, says the Canadian team that created them. The question everyone asks is
why anyone would want to clone flies in the first place. She hopes that the
insects , which are very easy to experiment with , will help to adjust the cloning
process in other animals and even in humans, where the technique is being
researched to aid production of therapeutic (治療的)
stem cells.
In cloning, the DNA-containing
nucleus of an adult cell is injected into an egg whose own nucleus(細(xì)胞核) has been removed. At the moment, the majority of cloned mice,
sheep and other animals die before birth. It is thought this is because the
adult DNA is not properly ‘reprogrammed’.
Using flies, researchers might
discover genes that are important for this reprogramming, and that have matches
in other animals. That is because it is relatively easy in flies to knock out
the function of a single gene and then attempt cloning with these cells, which
will test whether that gene is important. If such genes are confirmed, then in
theory cloned mammalian embryos(晶胚) might be grown in selected
solutions that change the activity of those genes to improve the technique’s success rate. Although some groups have attempted to clone
insects before, Lloyd says this is the first time it has been successful. The
team used a slight difference on the standard cloning process: they transferred
nuclei taken from embryos rather than fully-grown adult cells. They sucked
several nuclei (pl)out of developing fly embryos, and injected them into a fertilized(已受精的) fly egg. From over 800 early attempts,
they cloned five adult insects, the group reports in the journal Genetics.
1.The best title of this passage probably is
_______.
A．The importance of clone
B．First insects are cloned
C．The disagreement in clone
D．The advantages of clone
2.The scientists cloned flies because________.
A．there are fewer and fewer flies in the world
B．flies are easy to find and cheap to use
C．they can gain some experience before cloning other animals
D．it is safe to clone flies
3.The failure of most cloned animals is due to
_______.
A．the difference of other animals’
genes
B．the improper technique of clone
C．the complex of other animals
D．the improper rearrange of the adult gene
4.It can be inferred from the last paragraph
that ______.
A．the clone of insects before used grown-up cells
B．the clone of insects were never experimented before
C．this time scientists cloned flies successfully and easily
D．based on this success, other animals will be
cloned in large quantities.
