Chapter 7, Problem 3NST

Carbon Copy (CC), the first car produced from a clone, was created from an ovarian cell taken from her generic donor, Rainbow, a calico car. The diploid nucleus from the cell was extracted and then injected into an enucleated egg. The resulting zygote was then allowed to develop in a petri dish, and the cloned embryo was implanted in the uterus of a surrogate mother cat, who gave birth to CC. CC’s surrogate mother was a tabby (see the photo below). Geneticists were very interested in the outcome of cloning a calico cat because they were not certain if the cloned cat would have patches of orange and black, just orange, or just black. Taking into account the Lyon hypothesis, explain the basis of the uncertainty. Would you expect CC to appear identical to Rainbow? Explain why or why not.