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Writer: Graceana Hardy
Has the return of the dire wolf made extinction a thing of the past?
De-Extinction seems like something out of Jurassic Park. But on October 1, 2024, Colossal Bioscience claims to have achieved it, with the birth of their dire wolf puppies (a species that went extinct at the end of the ice age) Remus and Romulus. They were created by editing the DNA of a gray wolf embryo and inserting it back into a surrogate canine. Colossal Bioscience says this technology could pave the way for ecological rehabilitation of declining animal populations, but is it really all what they say it is? What is this technology actually achieving, and what is it going to be used for in the future? Could the dinosaurs be next? Today we will learn whether or not these “dire wolves” are actually the return of the roughly 12,500 year extinct species and what this could mean for the future of gene editing.
Colossal Bioscience claims that:
“On October 1, 2024, for the first time in human history, Colossal successfully restored a once-eradicated species through the science of de-extinction. After a 10,000+ year absence, our team is proud to return the dire wolf to its rightful place in the ecosystem…”
They achieved this by:
Working with an international team to recover part of the dire wolf genome by using DNA from two fossils ( a 13,000-year-old tooth from Ohio and a 72,000-year-old inner ear bone from idaho)
Drew blood from gray wolves with no identifiable domestic dog ancestry and modified the cells inside to resemble the genome they created. This was done by making 20 edits to 14 genes using CRISPR, which according to the National Human Genome Research Institute is, “a technology that research scientists use to selectively modify the DNA of living organisms”
They then inserted the modified DNA into gray wolf egg cells that had their own genetic information removed, had them incubated in a lab, before finally inserting them into the womb of a domestic dog.
The animals were delivered via cesarean section once they were fully grown.
Thus, the two very adorable Romulus and Remus were born. But are they dire wolves? The answer is no. What the colossal team has created is a gray wolf that is similar to what we think the dire wolf looks like. In an interview with Vox, paleontologist and associate professor Nic Lawrence said "Colossal has said that the gray wolf and dire wolf genomes are 99.5% identical, but that is still 12,235,000 [genetic] differences, so a gray wolf with 20 edits to 14 genes, even if these are key differences, is still very much a gray wolf.”
Furthermore, findings from a study conducted in 2021, show that the gray wolf is not the closest relative to a dire wolf. Dire wolves are not even technically wolves, they just evolved similarly leading them to resemble one. In reality, the dire wolf split off from the canine branch roughly 6 million years ago, and may be closer to an African jackal instead.
The technology Colossal is working on could provide great benefits to our environment, such as their use of cell cloning via blood draw rather than having to take an invasive tissue sample. And their work cloning the red wolf, (a species with only 15 left in the wild) led to the birth of 20 genetically identical cubs. But experts say that Colossal's choice to mislead their audience is only going to bring negative attention to their cause.
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