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Recovered RNA has put scientists one step closer to resurrecting the Tasmanian tiger (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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It might sound like the plot of Jurassic Park but scientists believe they can revive the extinct thylacine.

Whereas RNA is a single-stranded molecule that carries genetic information it receives from the DNA, putting this information into practice. Daniela Kalthoff, in charge of the mammal collection at the Museum of Natural History, said the idea of possibly resurrecting the Tasmanian tiger was an "exciting idea".

However, Dr Mármol and his colleagues note that their findings hold significance for global initiatives aimed to resurrect extinct species such as the woolly mammoth, as well as for studying pandemic RNA viruses.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

I look forward to Thylacine Park.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Have any other animals been brought back from extinction? - Answer is really YES. Some Italian goat was re-extinct for whole 7 minutes or so by cloning.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

That’s cool. I checked if you can clone from RNA and by converting it you can. With a donor egg and a surrogate (Tasmanian Devil or quoll are apparently the closest living relatives) you could try to reintroduce them.

If the embryos were viable. If they survived. And (big if) if funding was available and ethics were above board.

Do you reckon they could make hybrids and then selectively breed them closer to thylacines?

Any attempts might have to happen that way if they were to breed naturally. Because the clones would always be the same sex as the original unless you could manipulate the genes. Also they would all get horribly imbred by being clones.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

I don't think I ever heard of quolls before yesterday, now here you are mentioning it again. A quoll was just captured where they were thought to be extinct.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Lead study author Emilio Mármol, a computational biologist at the Centre for Palaeogenetics and SciLifeLab in Sweden, said to truly understand an extinct species, you need to know what the genes are and what they do.

"RNA sequencing gives you a taste of the real biology and metabolism regulation that was happening in the cells and tissues of the Tasmanian tigers before they went extinct," Dr Mármol said.

The research team was able to recover transcriptome of the thylacine's skin and skeletal muscle tissues from a 130-year old desiccated Tasmanian tiger specimen preserved at room temperature.

"RNA has never been extracted and sequenced from an extinct species before," said Love Dalen, a Stockholm University professor of evolutionary genomics who co-led the study.

Excessive hunting, combined with habitat destruction, and introduced disease led to the rapid extinction of the species, according to the National Museum Australia.

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