Examples of cloning and molecular biology

• cloning may produce heterozygous individuals (as mother was heterozygous) and suggests a way to get pure breeding cats
• molecular biology techniques have a low success rate, but only need a few successes to be able to then breed by conventional means
• transgenesis more effective compared with selective breeding, as only transfer the gene of interest
• both selective breeding and cloning may produce individuals with undesirable gene combinations as a result of inbreeding but with transgenesis this is less likely
• both transgenesis and cloning still need further actions to produce a population - either more transgenesis / cloning or more likely selective breeding using the transgenic cats
• if transgenesis is followed by cloning, then the potential for a reduction in genetic diversity still exists
• transgenesis may disrupt genome due to the hit and miss nature of insertion. This may affect gene expression if regulatory genes are affected
• recognises that cloning and transgenesis have different issues.