Korean wolf cloning confirmed

The authors of a study describing the first-ever cloning of endangered gray wolves have been cleared of intentional data manipulation by investigators at Seoul National University (SNU), where the research was conducted.

On Friday (April 27), SNU's Research Integrity Committee proclaimed the two wolves, Snuwolf and Snuwolffy, genuine clones after two labs -- one at SNU and the other outside of the university -- used tissue testing to confirm successful cloning.

However, the university said that the SNU researchers who conducted the study made several "unintentional" mistakes when writing the manuscript, including three data entry errors in two tables listing the microsatellite and mitochondrial DNA sequences of the study animals.

According to SNU, officials became suspicious of the findings at the end of March when young scientists began questioning the data on the message board of a Korean bio-engineering center Web site, including accusing the researchers of intentionally underestimating previous dog cloning success rates in the paper in order to inflate the success rate of their wolf results.

This prompted the Korean team, which also produced the world's first cloned dog in 2005, to request corrections to the text, causing the journal that published the findings, Cloning and Stem Cells, to pull the paper from its Web site.

The committee vindicated the SNU research team, led by veterinary scientist and former Woo-Suk Hwang collaborator Byeong-Chun Lee, of intentional data tampering after weeks of combing seized computer files and research notes.

In the original dog study, the investigators produced two cloned dogs out of 1095 embryos, creating an initial published success rate of 0.18 percent. However, one of the clones later died, so in the wolf manuscript, the authors changed their success rate to 0.09 percent. They reported the wolf cloning success rate as 0.80 percent, or two clone births from 251 embryos, which remains an increase on either of the dog cloning figures.

Vicki Cohn, managing editor at Mary Ann Liebert publishers, which publishes Cloning and Stem Cells, told The Scientist in an Email that editor-in-chief Ian Wilmut has received no comments from SNU, and therefore cannot comment on the committee's findings. "We are hoping to get a formal response from them, in which case he will decide whether or not to re-instate the paper online."

Martha Gomez, senior scientist at the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species in New Orleans, who has been working to clone endangered species since 2001, said she never doubted that the team successfully cloned wolves. "To fake a clone is hard," she told The Scientist.

But she too faulted the team's manuscript, saying it didn't provide nearly enough data to support their conclusions. "They didn't give you enough tables and data so that you can make your own decision" about the validity of their claims, said Gomez.

In particular, Gomez said that the Korean team should have included more information on the numbers of donor animals, the proportions of successful fusions and embryo implantations, and more robust tables describing the mitochondrial DNA analyses used to verify the study's results.

"I also blame the reviewers of the manuscript," she said. "How did they not catch this before it went out?" The authors of the wolf cloning study could not be reached for comment by deadline.

The Korean wolf cloning team was once led by Woo-Suk Hwang, who resigned from SNU after he fabricated data relating to his research on cloning human embryos. The cloned dog, however, was found to be genuine. Hwang is currently on trial in Korea for violating the country's bioethics laws, among other charges.

Bob Grant
mail@the-scientist.com

Links within this article:

MK Kim et al, "Endangered wolves cloned from adult somatic cells," Cloning Stem Cells, Spring 2007.
http://www.the-scientist.com/pubmed/17386020

Cloning and Stem Cells
http://www.liebertpub.com/publication.aspx?pub_id=9

B. Grant, "Korean wolf cloning study pulled," The Scientist, April 12, 2007.
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53065/

A. McCook, "Hwang faked results, says panel," The Scientist, December 23, 2005.
http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/22870/

I. Oransky, "First dog cloned," The Scientist, August 3, 2005.
http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/22746/

I. Oransky, "All Hwang cloning work fraudulent," The Scientist, January 10, 2006.
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/22933