How Japanese scientists managed to activate the cells of a 28,000-year-old mammoth

He was a little over two years old when he died.

28,000 years later, a group of Japanese scientists managed to activate some of their cells.

Researchers from Kindai University, Osaka, extracted bone marrow cells and muscle tissue from a woolly mammal called Yuka, discovered in 2011 in the Yakutsk region of Siberia.

The mammoth remained frozen and perfectly preserved in the Siberian permafrost.

The scientists injected the nuclei of Yuka cells into dozens of live mouse oocytes.

An oocyte is a female germ cell that is becoming a mature egg.

In the experiment, five oocytes showed signs of structural changes preceding cell division.

"Potential"

"This shows that despite years, cell activity can still take place," said Kei Miyamoto, one of the authors of the study published in the journal Scientific Reports.

"So far, many studies have been devoted to fossil DNA and not to its effectiveness," he added.

The results indicate that a "part of the mammoth cell nucleus has a potential for reconstitution".

However, Miyamoto recalled that none of the oocytes had entered the phase of cell division that would have been necessary to bring the species back to life.

"We are far away"

"We realized that the damage to the cells was very important," Miyamoto said.

"We have not even seen cell division and that is why I must say we are far from breeding a mammoth."

"We need new technologies, we want to try several approaches," the scientist added.

"Once the cell nuclei are in better conditions, we can move on to the cell division phase."

However, Miyamoto pointed out that the research provides a platform to evaluate the biological activity in the kernels of extinct species.

The study points out that research on fossil DNA is important because "ancient species possess valuable information about the genetic basis of evolution and the factors that lead to extinction".