for same-sex couples) remains to be seen. “However, its potential application for humans (e.g. “This study is particularly neat because it takes advantage of errors that are known to occur during culture of XY cells, which lead to loss of the Y chromosome and subsequent gain of a second X chromosome, resulting in XX cells that are capable of generating live offspring,” said Rod Mitchell, a professor of developmental endocrinology at the MRC Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, in a statement. Once fertilized with sperm and implanted into a mouse uterus, the eggs generated live offspring. Treating the XO cells with a compound called reversine increased the number of XX cells, the researchers found.įrom there, the team converted the XX cells into primordial germ cells, the precursors of eggs and sperm, that were subsequently programmed with the signals to turn them into egg cells. The researchers cultured the XO cells and found that some cells developed two X chromosomes as a result of cell division errors - making them chromosomally female. The technology could help expand future possibilities for fertility treatment. When the iPSCs are cultured in the lab, a few spontaneously lose the Y chromosome, which isn’t essential for the growth of this particular type of cell, generating “XO” cells, Hayashi explained. (Induced pluripotent stem cells, which can be developed into any kind of human cell, are widely used in biological research to model and investigate human diseases and develop drugs.) This process of genetic engineering, which introduces specific genes to create cells that mimic embryonic stem cells, was pioneered by Nobel Prize-winning scientist Shinya Yamanaka. The researchers took skin cells from the tails of fully grown male lab mice, which, as in male humans, contain one X and one Y chromosome, and turned them into induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs - a type of cell that scientists have reprogrammed into an embryonic state. Even if it is applied, we never know whether the eggs are safe enough to produce (a) baby,” Hayashi said. “It is expected that application into humans takes a long time, maybe 10 years or more. However, scientists warn there’s still much to learn before cultured cells can be used to make human eggs in a lab dish. The proof-of-concept research, the culmination of years of pain-staking lab work, could expand the possibilities for future fertility treatments, including for same-sex couples, and perhaps help prevent the extinction of endangered animals. It could have big implications for child medicine 100,000 newborn babies will have their genomes sequenced in the UK.
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