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Mice Created from Artificially Developed Embryos

posted by martyb on Friday September 16 2016, @02:40PM   Printer-friendly

takyon writes:

Scientists at the University of Bath have created mice by injecting sperm into parthenogenotes:

Eggs can be 'tricked' into developing into an embryo without fertilisation, but the resulting embryos, called parthenogenotes, die after a few days because key developmental processes requiring input from sperm don't happen.

However, scientists from the Department of Biology & Biochemistry at the University of Bath have developed a method of injecting mouse parthenogenotes with sperm that allows them to become healthy baby mice with a success rate of up to 24 per cent. This compares to a rate of zero per cent for parthenogenotes or about two per cent for nuclear transfer cloning.

[...] The baby mice born as a result of the technique seem completely healthy, but their DNA started out with different epigenetic marks compared with normal fertilisation. This suggests that different epigenetic pathways can lead to the same developmental destination, something not previously shown.

The discovery has ethical implications for recent suggestions that human parthenogenotes could be used as a source of embryonic stem cells because they were considered inviable. It also hints that in the long-term future it could be possible to breed animals using non-egg cells and sperm. Although this is still only an idea, it could have potential future applications in human fertility treatment and for breeding endangered species.

Mice produced by mitotic reprogramming of sperm injected into haploid parthenogenotes (open, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12676) (DX)

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday September 16 2016, @03:05PM

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Friday September 16 2016, @03:05PM (#402820) Journal

    That's not what many media outlets are reporting. It is more subtle in the summary:

    It also hints that in the long-term future it could be possible to breed animals using non-egg cells and sperm.

    Then there's this:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3787410/Could-babies-conceived-without-mother-Healthy-embryos-non-egg-cells-landmark-experiment.html [dailymail.co.uk]

    The babies with no mothers: Scientists discover how to make embryos from skin cells instead of eggs, making women redundant [...] Scientists have defied nature in an experiment which could one day make it possible for men to have babies with each other.

    http://www.nhs.uk/news/2016/09September/Pages/Could-fertility-breakthrough-lead-to-babies-with-no-mothers.aspx [www.nhs.uk]

    For the most part, the media coverage around the topic was accurate, stressing that the work is in its early stages. But headline writers decided to pick up the hype ball and run with it. Many headlines talked about "motherless babies", which did not acknowledge that the study still relied on eggs taken from a female. The Daily Mirror speculated about men having babies with each other, while the Daily Mail imagined a world without mothers. All of these concepts are pretty far removed from a small study involving mice.

    [...] This experimental study in mice shows that normal egg fertilisation is not the only way of maturing a sperm into a form needed to create all the tissues in the body. The researchers suggest that if it is possible to produce healthy mice babies by injecting sperm into pseudo-embryos, it might one day be possible to repeat the process in humans using cells that are not from eggs. They hope to extend the research to study the potential for skin cells to replace eggs in the future. However, as the authors acknowledge, this early work only demonstrates a principle – there are major barriers to overcome before reproduction in humans without egg cells would be a technical possibility, aside from ethical questions.

    Anyway, in the future we will have:

    • Artificial wombs
    • Men having babies (using an artificial womb) by artificially combining DNA with men (having boys or girls)
    • Women having babies (using an artificial womb or not) by artificially combining DNA with women (having girls)
    • Same as above, but with a DOWNLOADED Y chromosome thrown in to allow boys to be made
    • Or, life made by scientists to any specs, using whatever DNA is available online, no "parents"
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  • (Score: 2) by Bot on Friday September 16 2016, @04:06PM

    by Bot (3902) on Friday September 16 2016, @04:06PM (#402852) Journal

    > new ways to create meatbags

    how quaint.

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