Potential uses of cloning in breeding schemes: dairy cattle

Cloning by nuclear transfer has many potential applications in a dairy cattle breeding program. It can be used to increase the accuracy of selection and therefore the rate of genetic progress, to speed up the dissemination of the genes from animals of exceptionally high genetic merit to the commercial population, and to reproduce transgenic animals. Today, however, the main limitation of the use of cloning besides governmental regulations is its low success rate and consequently the high cost to produce an animal ready for reproduction. As a result cloning is mostly limited to the reproduction of animals of very high genetic merit or that carry genes of specific interest. Examples of this are top-ranked bulls which do not produce enough semen for the demand due to various reasons. A strategy that could be used by artificial insemination (AI) centers would be to create a bank of somatic cells for every bull entering AI facilities long before they are placed on the young sire proving program. The other use of cloning is to assist in the selection and reproduction of bull dams. Marker assisted selection (MAS) can substantially enhance the accuracy of selection for embryos or young animals without comprehensive performance records, and therefore can greatly increase the value of cloning such embryos or young animals.