Thu Mar 16, 2023 – 6:12 pm EDT
(LifeSiteNews) – Scientists in Japan have successfully bred a mouse with two genetic fathers by turning a male skin cell into an egg cell, raising ethical concerns regarding the technique’s potential use on humans.
Katsuhiko Hayashi, a biologist at the University of Osaka, announced last week that his team had helped conceive seven “healthy” mice pups using two genetic “fathers” in each case, marking the “first case of making robust mammal [eggs] from male cells.”
The strange feat was accomplished first by turning male skin cells into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, and these cells in turn had their Y chromosomes deleted and replaced by an X chromosome “borrowed” from another cell.
“The trick of this, the biggest trick, is the duplication of the X chromosome,” said Hayashi, The Guardian reported.
These XX iPS cells were then “cultivated in an ovary organoid, a culture system designed to replicate the conditions inside a mouse ovary,” before being fertilized with sperm. The 600 resulting embryos were implanted into surrogate mother mice, with seven of the 600 mice surviving to birth and even having a “normal lifespan” and going on to
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