IVF comes to the rescue of extinction- threatened northern white rhino
0 Only two northern white rhinos remain – both female Hope is in sight for the most endangered mammal on Earth after scientists used an IVF technique to create hybrid rhino embryos.
Frozen sperm from male northern white rhinos – none of which remain alive on the planet – was thawed and used to fertilise eggs donated by females from a closely- related sub- species.
The eggs successfully developed into early stage embryos, called blasto cysts, ready for implantation into a rhino womb.
It is the first time the assisted reproduction technique – adapted from horses and cattle – has been used on rhinos.
The researchers hope it will enable them to bring the northern white rhino back from the brink of extinction.
Only two of the animals remain alive, protected by armed guard son a Kenyan conservation park, and both are female. At a later stage the plan is to repeat the procedure using eggs from one or both of the surviving females.
The resulting embryos would then contain all the genes necessary to produce a new generation of northern white rhinos ( NWRS).
Professor Thomas Hildebrandt, from the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, said: “These are the first in vitro [ laboratory] produced rhinoceros embryos ever. They have a very high chance to establish a pregnancy once implanted into a surrogate mother.
“Our results are solid, reproducible and very promising. Now we are well prepared to go to Kenya and collect oocytes [ eggs] from the last two NWR female sin order to produce pure NWR blastocysts, where both eggs and sperm are from NWR.”
The last surviving male northern white rhino, named Sudan, died earlier this year at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, aged 45.
His daughter and granddaughter, both of whom shared his home, are now the last two remaining members of the sub- species left alive.
However, scientists have a stock of stored frozen sperm from male northern white rhinos that could rescue the animal from extinction.