CC, for "CopyCat" or "Carbon Copy" (born December 22, 2001), is a brown tabby

Tabby cat

A tabby is any cat that has a distinctive coat that features stripes, dots, lines or swirling patterns, usually together with an "M" mark on its forehead. Tabbies are sometimes erroneously assumed to be a cat breed. In fact, the tabby pattern is found in many breeds of cat, as well as among the...

 and white domestic shorthair

Domestic shorthaired cat

A domestic shorthaired cat is a cat fancy term used to describe a shorthaired cat that does not have a pedigree or belong to a recognized cat breed...

 and the first cloned

Cloning

Cloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...

 pet

Pet

A pet is a household animal kept for companionship and a person's enjoyment, as opposed to wild animals or to livestock, laboratory animals, working animals or sport animals, which are kept for economic or productive reasons. The most popular pets are noted for their loyal or playful...

. CC's surrogate mother was a tabby, but her genetic donor, Rainbow, was a calico domestic shorthair. The difference in hair coloration

Animal colouration

Animal coloration is the general appearance of an animal resulting from the reflection or emission of light from its surfaces. The mechanisms for colour production in animals include pigments, chromatophores, structural coloration, and bioluminescence....

 between CC and Rainbow is due to epigenetic re-programming, which normally occurs in a fertilised

Fertilisation

Fertilisation is the fusion of gametes to produce a new organism. In animals, the process involves the fusion of an ovum with a sperm, which eventually leads to the development of an embryo...

 embryo

Embryo

An embryo is a multicellular diploid eukaryote in its earliest stage of development, from the time of first cell division until birth, hatching, or germination...

 before implantation.

As a result of the cloning process, X inactivation occurred in the same X chromosome in all of CC's somatic cells, instead of the usual mosiacism

Mosaic (genetics)

In genetic medicine, a mosaic or mosaicism denotes the presence of two populations of cells with different genotypes in one individual who has developed from a single fertilized egg...

 that gives calicos their distinctive coloration. CC is genetically

Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....

 identical to Rainbow but epigenetically and thus phenotypically

Phenotype

A phenotype is an organism's observable characteristics or traits: such as its morphology, development, biochemical or physiological properties, behavior, and products of behavior...

 different. The embryo that became CC was the only one of 87 embryos produced in this research project that developed into a full-term pregnancy

Pregnancy

Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...

 after being transferred to surrogate mothers.

The research project that produced CC was known as "Operation CopyCat," and was part of a larger project (called Missyplicity

Missyplicity

The Missyplicity Project was a project devoted to cloning Joan Hawthorne and John Sperling's dog, a border collie and husky mix. Missy died on July 6, 2002 at the age of 15 years.-History:...

) to clone a dog

Dog

The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...

 named Missy. Genetic Savings & Clone, which provided commercial gene bank

Gene bank

Gene banks help preserve genetic material, be it plant or animal. In plants, this could be by freezing cuts from the plant, or stocking the seeds. In animals, this is the freezing of sperm and eggs in zoological freezers until further need. With corals, fragments are taken which are stored in water...

ing and cloning services to pet owners and which closed in 2006, funded the research.

CC was born at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M University

Texas A&M University

Texas A&M University is a coeducational public research university located in College Station, Texas . It is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. The sixth-largest university in the United States, A&M's enrollment for Fall 2011 was over 50,000 for the first time in school...

, under the direction of Dr. Mark Westhusin, in collaboration with Dr. Taeyoung Shin. Her existence was announced publicly on February 14, 2002, in conjunction with the publication by the scientific journal Nature

Nature (journal)

Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...

 of a paper about the accomplishment.

CC now lives in the household of Dr. Duane Kraemer, one of the scientists who worked on the project.

In September 2006, CC gave birth to three kitten

Kitten

A kitten is a juvenile domesticated cat.The young of big cats are called cubs rather than kittens. Either term may be used for the young of smaller wild felids such as ocelots, caracals, and lynx, but "kitten" is usually more common for these species....

s who were fathered naturally. This is the first time a cloned pet has given birth. CC appears to be free of the cloning-related health problems that have arisen in some other animal clones. "CC has always been a perfectly normal cat and her kittens are just that way, too," says Kraemer. "We’ve been monitoring their health and all of them are fine, just like CC has been for the past five years."

See also

• Pet cloning
  Pet cloning
  Pet cloning is the commercial cloning of a pet animal. The first commercially cloned pet was a cat named Little Nicky, produced in 2004 by Genetic Savings & Clone for a north Texas woman for the fee of US$50,000. On May 21, 2008 BioArts International announced a limited commercial dog cloning...
  
  
• Little Nicky (cat)
  Little Nicky (cat)
  Little Nicky is the first commercially produced cat clone. He was produced from the DNA of a 17-year-old Maine Coon cat named Nicky who died in 2003...
  
   - the first cat clone produced for a paying client
• The 6th Day
  The 6th Day
  The 6th Day is a 2000 American science fiction action thriller film directed by Roger Spottiswoode, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as family man Adam Gibson, who is cloned against his will in the future of 2015...
  
  - a sci-fi movie in which a fictional company provides pet cloning services

External links

• Grown: Rainbow (left) and daughter
• Copy Cat now has three kittens, September 2006
• Meet CC!
• Rainbow & CC