Same-sex mice have babies
發表於 : 週六 10月 13, 2018 10:03 am
Baby mice have been made with two mums and no dad, say researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
It took a substantial feat of genetic engineering to break the rules of reproduction.
The scientists said the "bimaternal" (two mammas) animals were healthy and went on to have pups of their own.
But there was bad news on the all-male front. Mice with double-dads were attempted, but died within days of being born.
So they broke the rules, what did they learn?
The reason we need to have sex is because our DNA - our genetic code - behaves differently depending on whether it comes from mum or dad, the study in Cell Stem Cell suggests.
And without a female copy and a male copy our whole development gets thrown out of whack.
It's called genomic imprinting with parts of the DNA in sperm and parts of the DNA in eggs getting different "stamps" that alter how they work.
Errors in genomic imprinting have been implicated in some diseases such as Angelman syndrome.
The bits of DNA carrying these stamps were the ones the researchers had to delete in order to make the baby mice viable.
Dr Wei Li, who conducted the experiments, said: "This research shows us what's possible.
"We saw that the defects in bimaternal mice can be eliminated and that bipaternal reproduction barriers in mammals can also be crossed."
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-45801043?SThisFB
It took a substantial feat of genetic engineering to break the rules of reproduction.
The scientists said the "bimaternal" (two mammas) animals were healthy and went on to have pups of their own.
But there was bad news on the all-male front. Mice with double-dads were attempted, but died within days of being born.
So they broke the rules, what did they learn?
The reason we need to have sex is because our DNA - our genetic code - behaves differently depending on whether it comes from mum or dad, the study in Cell Stem Cell suggests.
And without a female copy and a male copy our whole development gets thrown out of whack.
It's called genomic imprinting with parts of the DNA in sperm and parts of the DNA in eggs getting different "stamps" that alter how they work.
Errors in genomic imprinting have been implicated in some diseases such as Angelman syndrome.
The bits of DNA carrying these stamps were the ones the researchers had to delete in order to make the baby mice viable.
Dr Wei Li, who conducted the experiments, said: "This research shows us what's possible.
"We saw that the defects in bimaternal mice can be eliminated and that bipaternal reproduction barriers in mammals can also be crossed."
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-45801043?SThisFB