This also means, since mosaicism and chimerism are random as far as we can tell, that cloned tortoiseshells will look different. The same is true of any kind of brindled or striped marking - you have high-level control of what proportion of cells express which pigment, but not exactly which cells.
Also the fact that chimerism is particularly common in cattle was of clinical significance - cows can very frequently have two sets of immunological identities, blood groups, and so on, so surgical research for skin grafts and organ donation, using cows as model, failed to match humans. Pigs match much better. Picked that up from Peter Medawar's autobiography, Memoirs of a Thinking Radish, which I highly recommend.
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Date: 2006-03-25 02:36 am (UTC)This also means, since mosaicism and chimerism are random as far as we can tell, that cloned tortoiseshells will look different. The same is true of any kind of brindled or striped marking - you have high-level control of what proportion of cells express which pigment, but not exactly which cells.
Also the fact that chimerism is particularly common in cattle was of clinical significance - cows can very frequently have two sets of immunological identities, blood groups, and so on, so surgical research for skin grafts and organ donation, using cows as model, failed to match humans. Pigs match much better. Picked that up from Peter Medawar's autobiography, Memoirs of a Thinking Radish, which I highly recommend.