Scientists are trying to save endangered animals from extinction by turning animal poo into offspring.
Over one million species are on the path to extinction over the coming decades, with animals all around the world under threat, according to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
Now, researchers are exploring whether animal faeces could provide the answer to harnessing genetic diversity.
The “poo zoo” is a collaboration between University of Oxford, Chester Zoo and Revive & Restore to develop a “non-invasive technique” for viable cell collection and culture across multiple endangered species in efforts to help prevent extinction.
Biobanking, in which the living cells and tissues of endangered species are preserved at ultra-low temperatures, has been described as “essential” in safeguarding biodiversity.
Until now, obtaining these cells has required invasive biopsies or post-mortem tissue collection, which has severely limited the number of samples collected and the ability to preserve genetic diversity.
The premise of the “poo zoo” hinges on the fact that faeces is naturally rich with live intestinal cells, shed from the creature that deposited it, which would provide a non-invasive alternative to biopsies for cell collection.
Prof Suzannah Williams of Oxford University, who is leading the team, told The Guardian that the project is in its “very, very early stages” but they “feeling very positive.”
The university is working with domestic species to refine and optimise cell isolation and culture techniques, hoping to reprogram the cells into “induced pluripotent stem cells.”
In parallel, they are using faecal samples from endangered animals at Chester Zoo to develop protocols for collecting viable intestinal cells from various species.
As a result, they have reportedly not only worked with mouse poo, but also elephant faeces.
Dr Rhiannon Bolton, a researcher on the project from Chester Zoo, said: “It’s a case of how can we, en masse, collect living cells in as many species as we can to maintain diversity that we’re losing at a terrifying rate.”
The team hopes that in developing a non-invasive method to collect cells, they will be able to sample a greater number of individual species, preserve genetic diversity and support the conservation of viable species populations to help prevent extinction.
Entire animals could be created using state-of-art assisted reproductive technologies – not only through cloning, but through the reprogramming of cells so that they have the capacity to become any cell type.
Previous research in mice has suggested cells can become sperm and eggs, for potential IVF-style techniques of reproduction.
Dr Ashlee Hutchinson, a programme manager of Revive & Restore, a US-based conservation organisation, told The Guardian: “If you use eggs and sperm, you get to leverage sexual reproduction and all of the recombination that happens during those events, and you get to really start to build the potential for adaptation to environmental stress.”
This means you can bring together individual animals that might otherwise be in different parts of the world without needing to even collect their sperm and eggs.
This could also help scientists use gene-editing techniques to understand the genes involved in wildlife diseases or environmental evolutions, which could in turn be used to engineer greater resilience into a species through sex cell screening.
Already, scientists have explored gene editing, with bioscience company Colossal attempting to bring back the woolly mammoth through woolly mice.