Researchers have cloned mice from skin cells -- nine of 19 mice survived into adulthood.

But the team have now been able to create mouse embryos by removing the nucleus from an unfertilised egg cell and replacing it with the nucleus from an adult skin cell.

These were then cultured in the lab to become early-stage embryos called blastocysts.

These were then put into the wombs of adult mice and pregnancies were allowed to develop.

Usually, just one to two per cent of such blastocysts survive to birth and many cloned mice are not healthy.

In this study, the success rate was only 1.6% using skin cells from female mice and 5.4% using cells from male mice.

They suggest the difference may be caused by the female cells undergoing more complex changes than the male cells.

As well as being a good starting point for cloning mice, the researchers from said their method could be useful for generating embryonic stem cells.

The blastocysts created could be used as a source of embryonic stem cells, they said.

In turn these cells could, in theory, be used to produce any other type of cell, such as nerve cells or muscle cells.

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