News Highlight
Scientists in the US and Australia have embarked on a project to resurrect the Tasmanian Tiger, a marsupial that went extinct in the 1930s, using gene-editing technology.
Key Takeaway
- The ambitious project aims to re-introduce the animal to its native place, Tasmania, to revive the region’s lost ecological balance.
Tasmanian Tigers
- The Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) is the only animal in the Thylacinidae family to survive in modern times.
- It was a slow-paced carnivore that usually hunted alone or in pairs at night.
- The sharply clawed animal had a dog-like head and ate kangaroos, other marsupials, small rodents, and birds.
- The last known thylacine died in captivity over 80 years ago, in Tasmania’s Hobart Zoo in 1936.
Habitat
- It was once widespread in the grass and woodlands of continental Australia, extending north to New Guinea and south to Tasmania.
- The animal’s fate changed after the European colonisation of Australia.
Extinction of the Tasmanian Tigers and its ecological impact
- The animal was at the top of the food chain and hence played a significant role in balancing the ecosystem of its habitat by removing weak animals and maintaining species diversity.
- As the thylacine was the only apex predator in its ecosystem, its absence impacted the Tasmanian Devil, which was almost wiped out by a facial tumour disease.
- The thylacine would have prevented this by removing sick and weak animals from the ecosystem, which would have eventually controlled the spread of the transmissible diseases.
The resurrection process
- For the de-extinction project, the scientists will use a genome sequenced from DNA extracted from a 108-year-old specimen held at Australia’s Victoria Museum.
De-extinction technology; possibilities and challenges
- De-extinction is the method of bringing back a species that has gone extinct.
- While cloning is the most widely used method of de-extinction, genome editing and selective breeding are also considered effective.
- One of the challenges of de-extinction is that reintroducing the species to its former habitat may make it an invasive species, which will also impact the balance of the current ecological system.
Gene Editing
- It is a type of genetic engineering in which DNA is inserted, deleted, modified, or replaced in the genome of a living organism.
- Unlike early genetic engineering techniques that randomly insert genetic material into a host genome, genome editing targets the insertions to site-specific sites.
- CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) is widely considered the most precise, cost-effective, and quickest way to edit genes.
Pic Courtesy: The Guardian
Content Source: The Indian Express