<p>This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.</p> <p>The point of the present study is to illustrate and, if possible, promote the existing link between genomics and ethics, taking the example of cloned and transgenic animals.
These ‘new animals’ raise theoretical and practical problems that concern applied
ethics. We will explore more particularly an original strategy showing that it is
possible, starting from philosophical questioning about the nature of identity, to use
a genomic approach, based on amplification fragment length polymorphism (AFLP)
and methylation-sensitive amplification polymorphism (MSAP) detection, to provide
useful tools to define more rigorously what cloned animals are, by testing their genetic
and epigenetic identity. We expect from the future results of this combined approach
to stimulate the creativity of the philosophical and ethical reflection about the impact
of biotechnology on animals, and to increase scientific involvement in such issues.</p>
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Comp Funct Genomics. 2003 Feb; 4(1):26-30