Woolly Mice Are Cute and Impressive – but They Won't Bring Back Mammoths

upstart writes:

Woolly mice are cute and impressive - but they won't bring back mammoths or save endangered species:

US company Colossal Biosciences has announced the creation of a "woolly mouse" - a laboratory mouse with a series of genetic modifications that lead to a woolly coat. The company claims this is the first step toward "de-extincting" the woolly mammoth.

The successful genetic modification of a laboratory mouse is a testament to the progress science has made in understanding gene function, developmental biology and genome editing. But does a woolly mouse really teach us anything about the woolly mammoth?

Woolly mammoths were cold-adapted members of the elephant family, which disappeared from mainland Siberia at the end of the last Ice Age around 10,000 years ago. The last surviving population, on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean, went extinct about 4,000 years ago.

The house mouse (Mus musculus) is a far more familiar creature, which most of us know as a kitchen pest. It is also one of the most studied organisms in biology and medical research. We know more about this laboratory mouse than perhaps any other mammal besides humans.

Colossal details its new research in a pre-print paper, which has not yet been peer-reviewed. According to the paper, the researchers disrupted the normal function of seven different genes in laboratory mice via gene editing.

Six of these genes were targeted because a large body of existing research on the mouse model had already demonstrated their roles in hair-related traits, such as coat colour, texture and thickness.

The modifications in a seventh gene - FABP2 - was based on evidence from the woolly mammoth genome. The gene is involved in the transport of fats in the body.

Woolly mammoths had a slightly shorter version of the gene, which the researchers believe may have contributed to its adaptation to life in cold climates. However, the "woolly mice" with the mammoth-style variant of FABP2 did not show significant differences in body mass compared to regular lab mice.

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