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Rewriting reproduction: With stem cells and CRISPR, scientists breed mice with same-sex parents
For the first time, scientists said Thursday that they had bred mice with two genetic fathers, steering around biological hurdles that would otherwise prevent same-sex parents from having offspring. The researchers also bred mouse pups with two genetic mothers. Those pups matured into adults and had pups of their own, outpacing previous efforts to create so-called bimaternal mice. [...] The cells used to make the mouse embryos were profoundly manipulated. The vast majority of the embryos made did not result in births. And none of the bipaternal mouse pups — those with two genetic fathers — survived to adulthood.
[...] At issue is "genomic imprinting," an evolutionary feature found in mammals (and also flowering plants) that researchers believe blocks these species from producing progeny without both maternal and paternal DNA. In our genomes, there are two copies of each gene — one from mom, one from dad — and both get expressed to make us us. But there are some 100 genes where "imprints" stationed along the genome signal one copy to be active and one to be silent. "The other copy is there and it's presented and there's nothing wrong with the DNA sequence," said Manus Patten, an evolutionary biologist at Georgetown University, who was not part of the new research. "It's just turned off." Mammals still need both sets, though, to have their full suite of genetic instructions. IGF2, for example, is a gene crucial for growth and development, but only the paternal copy is normally active. If we just inherited DNA maternally then, we wouldn't grow or develop properly; that gene would simply remain off. On the flip side, there are a number of these genes for which we rely on our mothers.
But scientists started challenging nature's way a decade and a half ago. The trick was to cajole certain maternal genes to act like paternal genes in terms of their activity, or vice versa. In 2004, a team of Japanese researchers for the first time created mice [DOI: 10.1038/nature02402] [DX] with two mothers by toying with imprint signals, though only one of the 10 mice born in that study — out of more than 400 embryos — grew to adulthood. To try to improve on past results, the researchers in the new study manipulated imprint instructions even more extensively.
Today, it's a proof of concept. Tomorrow, it will be refined.
Also at BBC and Popular Science.
Generation of Bimaternal and Bipaternal Mice from Hypomethylated Haploid ESCs with Imprinting Region Deletions (open, DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2018.09.004) (DX)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Unixnut on Friday October 12 2018, @05:34PM (15 children)
I have mixed feelings about this. I am impressed by what they have achieved, but at the same time, I can't help but feel that humans really don't need more ways of making babies.
Our population growth is already quite high just through natural methods of conception, and quite a few people are already pointing out that we should try to bring the population down by having less babies (indeed in the western world there is already a decline in population). There are plenty of kids in need of adoption or otherwise in orphanages or in social care.
Somehow I just feel our research resources could have been better spent elsewhere, but I guess if we ever have a collapse of human population, having the technology to do this might be useful (although unless they worked out the artificial womb by then, you still need a female to be the surrogate mother, at which point, in such a dystopian future, you can forgo the technology and conceive naturally).
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 12 2018, @05:49PM (1 child)
Ok, here I go…
I have mixed feelings about this. I am impressed by what they have achieved, but at the same time, I can't help but feel that humans really don't need more ways of making humans staying alive. Our population growth is already quite high…
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @03:05AM
I guess this was a bit too subtle for some ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 12 2018, @06:21PM (3 children)
This will be needed for the anarcho-capitalist revolution! We have Ms. Vim to thank for putting the pieces together with two key observations. First, men are not angels. Second, the pronoun "she" is used with women because of their angelic nature. The solution was sitting in front of us all this time! Obviously, we must kill all men! After we've implemented the Exterminate Men Angelic Contract System, we will be rid of the poisonous Y chromosome and violently imposed monopolies forever!
So as you can see, the future where this is needed is not a dystopia, but a shining utopia!
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday October 12 2018, @06:39PM (2 children)
Where's the "WTF" mod?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 13 2018, @10:41AM
emacs...
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday October 13 2018, @09:27PM
It sounds like dialog straight from Futurama. Read it in Femputer's voice :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 12 2018, @07:10PM (2 children)
like it or not, the future belongs to those who procreate.
if those who cannot have children the old-fashioned way have enough resources to fund such research, it's their right to do it.
if the funding is coming from everyone, then yes you have a right to talk about it.
or you start lobying for some sort of legislation on it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday October 12 2018, @10:33PM
No it doesn't. It belongs to their offspring. Who aren't genetic clones of their parents, generally speaking, and also have had a completely different set of experiences that have shaped their instincts and opinions. The people who procreated will be dead within somewhere around 80 years after the little tykes were born, just like the people who didn't procreate.
And it's also not like parents necessarily have a greater impact on the direction of humanity as non-parents, either: There are plenty of people who have achieved all kinds of success and fame and impact who don't have kids.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 12 2018, @10:34PM
The future belongs to those who can kill off procreators' offspring while keeping themselves alive indefinitely. Something something Tessier-Ashpool.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Saturday October 13 2018, @02:56AM (5 children)
I'm leery of finding ways around points where nature has inhibited reproduction. Effectively, working around that preserves and perpetuates defective genes, or other fitness failures (with regard to species survival).
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 13 2018, @03:27AM (4 children)
Within one or two generations, we'll have gene editing and designer babies widely available, not long after same-sex couple babies become a thing (this is clearly not ready for the prime time anyway, and more precise and less lethal gene editing techniques will be used). Our biotechnology is advancing faster than it will take to become a population full of coddled mutants. We might be looking at humanity splitting into multiple species within 200 years.
We set out on this path when we started managing or curing conditions that would have been almost certainly fatal in pre-history or before modern medicine. Now we can even do surgery on newborns with a reasonable chance of success. And we have IVF to make reproduction much easier for some couples. Doing these things may have a negative effect on the gene pool, but we are rapidly approaching a time when we have the ability to correct the resulting errors.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Touché) by Reziac on Saturday October 13 2018, @07:26AM (3 children)
And that's viable so long as your technology remains intact.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 13 2018, @08:09AM (2 children)
Sure, but...
How do we eliminate all of the technology? Nuclear war? If we have a nuclear war soon, a lot of people will be facing completely new selection pressures. May the most radiation resistant prosper.
Even in the event of a nuclear war, there will likely be small groups of people with access to labs, and a lot of people with copies of the necessary knowledge. So if things improve a century or more later, we might not have to reinvent the wheel.
If this event happens, a lot of people will die. A lot of people will no longer have access to the same level of health care they once had. So the previously manageable conditions will become fatal again. A lot more babies will die, and birth rates will go back up to compensate, giving couples more tries to produce a genetically resilient child. So the problem fixes itself.
We could go a step further and start seriously colonizing the Moon, Mars, and other solar system objects. Becoming a multi-planetary species could allow pockets of humanity to go unscathed, and provide more complete backups of our knowledge. These colonies could face some trouble if they rely on Earth resupply of things like computer chips. But they should at least be able to survive and grow their own crops, some organic chemicals, medicines, and bioplastics. They could manufacture their own fuel for an eventual return to Earth using one of the vehicles brought from Earth (such as a BFS). Or they could just wait it out and develop in isolation. Earth's remaining population should still know about the colonies on other worlds. If this is somehow not the case, they could find out through radio communications, or just discover it through observations much later.
Once things get back to normal, you should see some of the same fertility and biotech trends you are seeing now. Hopefully without the same existential crisis or war cyclically happening.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday October 13 2018, @03:45PM
I think that's a best-case vision. Even so, if Things Fall Apart down here on Earth, there'd be a lot of colonies scrabbling for what they can't make themselves. Which might include stuff you need to visit the next colony over, depending on what resources they have. But if Things Fall Apart in the worst possible way before we achieve the viable-colonies stage, I think what would be mostly left are central Africa and the more backward parts of Asia and South America, and good luck restarting a tech civilization from that; the gene pool just doesn't have the IQ to do it.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday October 13 2018, @03:48PM
PS. don't forget to back up the gadget you'll need to READ that hold-in-your-hand storage.... actually, the only realistic way to more or less ensure its future readability might be to encode it in our DNA. But that's not really such high-capacity storage.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.