from the foster-child-of-Silence-and-slow-Time dept.
With its inquisitive eyes, furry snout, and lush pelt, the mouse—nicknamed Xiao Zhu, or Little Bamboo—nimbly perched on a bamboo stalk, striking a pretty pose for the camera. But this mouse doesn't exist in nature.
Made in a lab in Beijing, Xiao Zhu pushes the boundary of what's possible for genetic engineering and synthetic biology. Rather than harboring the usual 20 pairs of chromosomes, the mouse and its sibling cohorts only have 19 pairs. Two chunks of different chromosomes were artificially fused together in a daring experiment that asked: rather than tweaking individual DNA letters or multiple genes, can we retune an existing genomic playbook wholesale, shuffling massive blocks of genetic material around at the same time?
[...] Chromosome-level engineering is a completely different beast: it's like rearranging multiple paragraphs or shifting complete sections of an article and simultaneously hoping the changes add capabilities that can be passed onto the next generation.
[...] The new study, published in Science, made the technology possible for mice. The team artificially fused together chunks from mice chromosomes. One fused pair made from chromosomes four and five was able to support embryos that developed into healthy—if somewhat strangely behaved—mice. Remarkably, even with this tectonic shift to their normal genetics, the mice could reproduce and pass on their engineered genetic quirks to a second generation of offspring.
[...] The study isn't perfect. Some genes in the engineered mice were abnormally tuned down, resembling a pattern usually seen in schizophrenia and autism. And although the mice grew to adulthood and could breed healthy pups, the birth rate was far lower than that of their non-engineered peers.
Even so, the study is a tour de force, said evolutionary biologist Dr. Harmit Malik at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, who was not involved in the study. We now have this "beautiful toolkit" to tackle outstanding questions regarding genomic changes on a larger scale, potentially shedding light on chromosomal diseases.
Journal Reference:
Li-Bin Wang, Zhi-Kun Li, Le-Yun Wang, et al., A sustainable mouse karyotype created by programmed chromosome fusion, Science, 377, 2022. DOI: 10.1126/science.abm1964
(Score: 4, Interesting) by HiThere on Tuesday September 13 2022, @01:51PM (3 children)
This *was* a major achievement, but it's NOT "a million years of evolution". Evolution is not only change, it's also selection against the environment.
This is a quite impressive change. Fusing chromosomes and having it be successful isn't trivial, and it's not something that's been well explored. (This is probably a first.) But it's NOT "a million years of evolution". Saying that it wouldn't happen in an average species line more than about once in a million years is probably an underestimate, but there are exceptions.
If you were to TRY to justify that headline, you'd need to explain what environment it was more adapted to, and why the adaptations fit the environment.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Username on Tuesday September 13 2022, @01:58PM (1 child)
I would have given it the title, "Chinese give mouse down syndrome"
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday September 13 2022, @04:00PM
Except that down syndrome is caused by an extra copy of one specific chromosome (#21), or at least a big chunk of it - and thus has absolutely nothing to do with fusing two separate chromosomes into one.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 13 2022, @08:53PM
The implication is pretty profound: these mice most likely cannot interbreed with the mice they were derived from.
Applied to humans, it would create a whole new class of people who could breed among themselves but not with the general population. Couple it with an immunity to the next super-flu and you have a recipe for global domination worthy of a Jeff VanderMeer novel.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by bart9h on Tuesday September 13 2022, @03:42PM (1 child)
So, it begins.
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Tuesday September 13 2022, @05:28PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Tuesday September 13 2022, @04:47PM (3 children)
Those mice can, so it seems, reproduce. Can they interbreed with non-fused mice?
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Tuesday September 13 2022, @05:29PM (2 children)
given what I remember about genetics the answer would probably be "no".
If I remember my biology class correctly the reproductive cells usually contain half of the chromosomes, there are exceptions like the Indian Muntjac male having 7 to the female's 6, of the parents and then those fuse into a complete set for the offspring. So with a normal mouse having 20 sets and these creatures having 19 the chromosomes probably couldn't merge into complete sets.
Its why different species can't interbreed. Crossing a chicken with 39 chromosomes with a Human's 23 couldn't create a viable cell naturally.
Research like this is going to open a whole new can of worms about what sort of rights a genetically created lifeforms have. Can someone copyright the creature? What if one of these creatures developed basic sentience? What sort of rights will they have?
Sure, it will likely be years before those questions will really need to be answered but we better start thinking about them now, before it becomes a hot button issue.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday September 13 2022, @08:36PM (1 child)
Legally speaking, at present, sentient non-humans have no rights whatsoever.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 13 2022, @08:56PM
You would be referring to the cetaceans, great apes, larger squid, octopi, and all the other sentient species who are currently getting abused by h. sapiens in various ways?
We don't need to make new sentient species - there are plenty around already.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Tuesday September 13 2022, @05:06PM
The last time this line of research was done it didn't end well for Humanity.
Gyaos [wikizilla.org] (in the Heisei trilogy) only had one chromosome.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."