Voice of America
18 Mar 2023, 16:07 GMT+10
For the first time, scientists have created baby mice from two males.
This raises the distant possibility of using the same technique for people - although experts caution that very few mouse embryos developed into live mouse pups, and no one knows whether it would work for humans.
Still, 'It's a very clever strategy,' said Diana Laird, a stem cell and reproductive expert at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the research. 'It's an important step in both stem cell and reproductive biology.'
Scientists described their work in a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
First, they took skin cells from the tails of male mice and transformed them into 'induced pluripotent stem cells,' which can develop into many different types of cells or tissues. Then, through a process that involved growing them and treating them with a drug, they converted male mouse stem cells into female cells and produced functional egg cells. Finally, they fertilized those eggs and implanted the embryos into female mice. About 1% of the embryos - 7 out of 630 - grew into live mouse pups.
The pups appeared to grow normally and were able to become parents themselves in the usual way, research leader Katsuhiko Hayashi of Kyushu University and Osaka University in Japan told fellow scientists at the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing last week.
In a commentary published alongside the Nature study, Laird and her colleague, Jonathan Bayerl, said the work 'opens up new avenues in reproductive biology and fertility research' for animals and people. Down the road, for example, it might be possible to reproduce endangered mammals from a single male.
'And it might even provide a template for enabling more people,' such as male same-sex couples, 'to have biological children, while circumventing the ethical and legal issues of donor eggs,' they wrote.
But they raised several cautions. The most notable one: The technique is extremely inefficient. They said it's unclear why only a tiny fraction of the embryos placed into surrogate mice survived; the reasons could be technical or biological. They also stressed that it's still too early to know if the protocol would work in human stem cells at all.
Laird also said scientists need to be mindful of the mutations and errors that may be introduced in a culture dish before using stem cells to make eggs.
The research is the latest to test new ways to create mouse embryos in the lab. Last summer, scientists in California and Israel created 'synthetic' mouse embryos from stem cells without a dad's sperm or a mom's egg or womb. Those embryos mirrored natural mouse embryos up to 8 ½ days after fertilization, containing the same structures, including one like a beating heart. Scientists said the feat could eventually lay the foundation for creating synthetic human embryos for research in the future.
Get a daily dose of Iraq Sun news through our daily email, its complimentary and keeps you fully up to date with world and business news as well.
Publish news of your business, community or sports group, personnel appointments, major event and more by submitting a news release to Iraq Sun.
More InformationWEST READING, Pennsylvania: An explosion occurred at a chocolate factory in Pennsylvania, killing seven people and seeing ten staff members ...
OTTAWA, Canada: US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have announced a plan to close a loophole ...
UVLADE, Texas: Texas police stopped a Florida-bound freight train this week and discovered two migrants had died in a freight ...
ROLLING FORK, Mississippi: A powerful tornado has struck Mississippi, killing at least 25 people, injuring dozens, flattening entire blocks and ...
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras: In what could signal the end of his country's decades-long relations with Taiwan, Honduran foreign minister Eduardo Enrique ...
WASHINGTON D.C.: A new US Congressional committee focusing on China held its second hearing on the alleged abuses of the ...
ABU DHABI, 28th March, 2023 (WAM) -- The Abu Dhabi Forum for Peace's Ramadan lecture series has been launched by ...
Islamabad [Pakistan], March 29 (ANI): Pakistan is in a fix as it has entered into a vicious cycle of borrowing ...
© Provided by Xinhua Surging fuel prices have forced many people in Lebanon to reduce the use of cars as ...
Srinagar (Jammu and Kashmir) [India], March 28 (ANI): The farmers, inhabiting the world-famous 'Dal Lake', associated with Lotus Stem (Nadru) ...
New Delhi [India], March 28 (ANI): India's G20 Presidency reached a milestone on Tuesday as it marked a half-century of ...
ABU DHABI, 28th March, 2023 (WAM) -- Borouge is supplying sustainable "Made in UAE" polyethylene materials worth AED120 million that ...