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Colossal Biosciences has included the blue antelope, extinct around 1800 due to hunting in South Africa, in its de-extinction program, a project that requires more than 100 genetic alterations from a reconstructed genome of one of the five museum specimens, using DNA editing, stem cells, and eggs from living antelopes.
The biotechnology company already working to bring back the woolly mammoth, the dodo, and the dire wolf has now included an extinct antelope on its list of animals it intends to “resurrect”. Colossal Biosciences announced this Thursday (30) that the blue antelope, scientifically named Hippotragus leucophaeus, officially described in 1766 and extinct around 1800 due to intensive hunting in South Africa, has joined the company’s de-extinction projects, which already include the woolly mammoth, the dodo, the moa, the thylacine, and the dire wolf. The blue antelope disappeared in just over three decades after being scientifically cataloged, a victim of European colonization that decimated entire populations of the animal for its hide and meat.
The challenge of bringing the antelope back is technically complex but has an advantage that other de-extinction projects do not. The genetic proximity between the blue antelope and living species such as the roan antelope and the sable antelope facilitates experiments because it allows the use of eggs and reproductive structures from existing animals as a basis to generate embryos with edited characteristics to approximate the extinct species. The Colossal team estimates that recreating the characteristics of the blue antelope will require more than 100 alterations to the genetic code, a number that reflects both the complexity of the process and the limitation of available information about an animal that only survives in five specimens preserved in museums around the world.
How science intends to reconstruct an antelope that disappeared more than two centuries ago
The starting point for the de-extinction of the blue antelope is a detailed genome reconstructed from one of the five museum specimens. Despite the scarcity of available genetic material, researchers were able to sequence the preserved DNA and identify the differences between the extinct antelope and its closest living relatives, a mapping that guides which genetic alterations need to be performed to transform cells from a roan antelope into something genetically similar to the disappeared animal. Studies
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