Gracie is physically no different than the other cattle roaming through the LSU AgCenter’s Embryo Biotechnology facility.
But unlike the other cattle, Gracie is a clone.
If being a clone was not significant enough, Gracie was cloned using vitrification, a procedure never successfully performed before on a cow.
Vitrification is a new freezing procedure that preserves the donor’s egg during the cloning process, said Dr. Robert Godke, the project leader.
Godke said vitrification has been used before on other animals, but not on cows.
Sabrina Luster, an animal science graduate student, developed and performed the vitrification procedure for Gracie.
“Eggs are the largest cells in the body and have a high water content and a high surface area to volume ratio,” Luster said. “These factors make it much more difficult to preserve the egg.”
During the cloning process, the egg must go through a cooling phase and usually is damaged because of ice crystal formation inside its membrane, Godke said.
“When I was asked to work on this project, our ultimate goal was to use the vitrification procedure on a goat,” Luster said.
Luster said the idea to perform vitrification on a cow made more sense because of its economic importance to the state.
Godke said vitrification also benefits researchers.
“Cows only produce eggs once a year and vitrification helps because researchers can now use the eggs year round for research,” Godke said.
The clone received the name Gracie because she was born on Jan. 8, Elvis Presley’s birthday. Graceland is the name of Presley’s mansion.
Gracie was born through a Caesarean section and weighed 105 lbs.
Richard Denniston, an animal science assistant professor, said Gracie is healthy and performs the activities of a typical cow. Gracie, like most cows, eats hay.
Luster said Gracie’s donor egg came from the Ben Hur Research Station at the LSU AgCenter, and she looks just like the donor.
Godke said this development in research shows the University’s biotechnology division is at the same level as other prominent biotechnology universities.