Scientists Create Mice With Two Fathers After Making Eggs From Male Cells (theguardian.com) 180
Scientists have created mice with two biological fathers by generating eggs from male cells, a development that opens up radical new possibilities for reproduction. The Guardian reports: The advance could ultimately pave the way for treatments for severe forms of infertility, as well as raising the tantalizing prospect of same-sex couples being able to have a biological child together in the future. "This is the first case of making robust mammal oocytes from male cells," said Katsuhiko Hayashi, who led the work at Kyushu University in Japan and is internationally renowned as a pioneer in the field of lab-grown eggs and sperm. Hayashi, who presented the development at the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing at the Francis Crick Institute in London on Wednesday, predicts that it will be technically possible to create a viable human egg from a male skin cell within a decade. Others suggested this timeline was optimistic given that scientists are yet to create viable lab-grown human eggs from female cells.
The study, which has been submitted for publication in a leading journal, relied on a sequence of intricate steps to transform a skin cell, carrying the male XY chromosome combination, into an egg, with the female XX version. Male skin cells were reprogrammed into a stem cell-like state to create so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. The Y-chromosome of these cells was then deleted and replaced by an X chromosome "borrowed" from another cell to produce iPS cells with two identical X chromosomes. "The trick of this, the biggest trick, is the duplication of the X chromosome," said Hayashi. "We really tried to establish a system to duplicate the X chromosome."
Finally, the cells were cultivated in an ovary organoid, a culture system designed to replicate the conditions inside a mouse ovary. When the eggs were fertilized with normal sperm, the scientists obtained about 600 embryos, which were implanted into surrogate mice, resulting in the birth of seven mouse pups. The efficiency of about 1% was lower than the efficiency achieved with normal female-derived eggs, where about 5% of embryos went on to produce a live birth. The baby mice appeared healthy, had a normal lifespan, and went on to have offspring as adults. "They look OK, they look to be growing normally, they become fathers," said Hayashi. He and colleagues are now attempting to replicate the creation of lab-grown eggs using human cells.
The study, which has been submitted for publication in a leading journal, relied on a sequence of intricate steps to transform a skin cell, carrying the male XY chromosome combination, into an egg, with the female XX version. Male skin cells were reprogrammed into a stem cell-like state to create so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. The Y-chromosome of these cells was then deleted and replaced by an X chromosome "borrowed" from another cell to produce iPS cells with two identical X chromosomes. "The trick of this, the biggest trick, is the duplication of the X chromosome," said Hayashi. "We really tried to establish a system to duplicate the X chromosome."
Finally, the cells were cultivated in an ovary organoid, a culture system designed to replicate the conditions inside a mouse ovary. When the eggs were fertilized with normal sperm, the scientists obtained about 600 embryos, which were implanted into surrogate mice, resulting in the birth of seven mouse pups. The efficiency of about 1% was lower than the efficiency achieved with normal female-derived eggs, where about 5% of embryos went on to produce a live birth. The baby mice appeared healthy, had a normal lifespan, and went on to have offspring as adults. "They look OK, they look to be growing normally, they become fathers," said Hayashi. He and colleagues are now attempting to replicate the creation of lab-grown eggs using human cells.
Children of Men (Score:2)
Very important research to have on hand in the case of a "Children of Men" scenario.
Re: (Score:2)
In case of more mediocre distopian action movies we need to create more mice in labs?
Re: (Score:2)
Sure it didn't do well at the box office but it was a pretty good film, it even won a Saturn award for Best Science Fiction Film, so I would hardly call it "mediocre."
Re: (Score:3)
I was just joking, it's a fantastic movie in every way, both technical, cinematography, story, acting, etc. It received three Oscar nominations and was nearly universally liked by critics and audiences. Back when it came out, I randomly watched it in cinema having only read the title and not knowing anything about it and I was completely blown away.
Re: Children of Men (Score:2)
Lulz side (and yes, I make comments like this for lulz too) there is a big dose of reality here. The Oscars are well known to be rigged. It's pretty much an open secret. Traditionally it has been done through bribery (no joke, look it up) though lately it has also taken political issues into consideration, and specifically Hollywood politics, which contrary to popular belief, aren't necessarily (but often align with) democratic politics. And by often, I mean whenever they're exposed as not being in alignmen
Re: (Score:2)
Children of men are probably gholas created for the purpose of sex abuse.
Re: (Score:3)
There is an overlooked problem here. If you create an egg from a male's XY, the Y is "truncated" compared to the X. So it's only using the X.
So what would happen is that there is a very good chance that this is only going to produce female offspring after a while. Maybe not in 1 generation but maybe after a few generations when two of those "modified" male offspring's children mate and you get nothing but modified X's as the Y's won't be produced as it will have never seen an Y cell to divide when producing
This should be interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Two males can make a baby? Religious fundamentalists all over the world are going to go absolutely berserk.
Re: (Score:3)
Two males can make a baby? Religious fundamentalists all over the world are going to go absolutely berserk.
Nah, they'll ignore it just like everything else that doesn't fit their narrative. An important thing that the scientifically minded see to forget pretty often; "Don't bring facts to a narrative fight."
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Nah, they'll ignore it just like everything else that doesn't fit their narrative.
Such as the words of their supposed savior?
Re: (Score:2)
Don't know a lot of religious extremists, do ya? (Score:2)
If you wanna lose some sleep tonight go look into the American "Christian Nationalist" movement.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You're just asking questions, right? Nothing wrong with just asking questions, right?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
On the contrary, science requires proof of 'miracles'.
Jesus had 2 daddies.
Well done, guys. You just proved Immaculate Conception! :)
Re: (Score:2)
On the contrary, science requires proof of 'miracles'.
Jesus had 2 daddies.
Well done, guys. You just proved Immaculate Conception! :)
The Christian narrative is that Jesus was the Son of God and that Mary was Jesus' biological mother. Joseph raised Jesus, but didn't contribute DNA.
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed but yes and no - the gospels document Joseph's ancestry back many generations.
So on the one hand Mary was untouched but on the other there's a narrative that stresses an unbroken lineage back to David on his non biological dad's side.
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed but yes and no - the gospels document Joseph's ancestry back many generations. So on the one hand Mary was untouched but on the other there's a narrative that stresses an unbroken lineage back to David on his non biological dad's side.
Joseph raised Jesus, so his lineage would have mattered to Jews, especially to show Jesus' legitimate claim to the throne of David.
Re: This should be interesting (Score:2)
The bible doesn't say whose DNA god used. God is fairly powerful as far as I can make out, so he could have used Josephs DNA for all we know.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The bible doesn't say whose DNA god used. God is fairly powerful as far as I can make out, so he could have used Josephs DNA for all we know.
Seeing how DNA wasn't discovered until long after the Bible was canonized, it would have been remarkable for DNA being recorded in documents from the 1st and 2nd centuries of the Common Era.
Jesus' duality of half-mortal, half-deity was essential. Jesus had the capability of holding off death (he was deity), but could allow himself to die (half human).
Re: (Score:2)
The Christian narrative is that Jesus was the Son of God and that Mary was Jesus' biological mother. Joseph raised Jesus, but didn't contribute DNA.
So he never had sex with his wife in a cultural environment where providing prima facie evidence of having sex with your wife at the wedding is pretty much standard in order to actually claim to be married in the first place? That one always seemed a bit odd.
Re: (Score:2)
The Christian narrative is that Jesus was the Son of God and that Mary was Jesus' biological mother. Joseph raised Jesus, but didn't contribute DNA.
So he never had sex with his wife in a cultural environment where providing prima facie evidence of having sex with your wife at the wedding is pretty much standard in order to actually claim to be married in the first place? That one always seemed a bit odd.
The Bible states that Joseph knew not his wife until Jesus was born.
Re: (Score:3)
Then Joseph and Mary were, by tradition, not married and she was a single woman gallivanting around with a man she was not married to and also having a child out of wedlock.
Re: This should be interesting (Score:3)
Well, aren't you a needlessly angry incel...
Re: (Score:2)
Not to rain on your hate parade but there isn't really any conflict between this and Christian beliefs. If anything it is the opposite with Eve supposedly having been made from a part of Adam.
If you step outside literal interpretations, going with notions like the whole thing being what the aliens told us having been written down after some period of surviving only as oral tradition by primitive man it fits even better.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If anything it is the opposite with Eve supposedly having been made from a part of Adam.
Which we are aware of, but most Christians these days seem to have a big problem with transgender females, let along transgender female clones. It's _almost_ funny watching these people who ostensibly believe that the first woman was transgender go on and on about how a man is a man and a woman is a woman and that's that! Almost funny if they weren't so deadly serious about it and potentially dangerous.
Re: (Score:2)
It's kind of hard to get all worked up over. It's not something people are going to be able to do in great numbers for almost certainly many decades. As scientific accomplishments go this also seems like ti was almost inevitable. It was always require a certain amount of technological involvement to remain possible and so it's among the many things that will not be possible the moment the human race decides to try and wipe itself out. If human civilization lasts long enough for this to become common then so
Re: (Score:3)
Probably to a small extent but not so much as if they then fertilized that egg with the sperm from the same father. A single inbred generation usually isn't a huge deal though, it mostly is an issue across generations.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Worth doing it just for that lolz.
Re: (Score:2)
This would be a good time to invest in companies that deal in popcorn and comfy chairs.
Re: (Score:3)
God wants us to do it. If he didn't he could have made it impossible, like landing on the Sun or traveling faster than the speed of light. God could easily have blocked it with some physics.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
God wants us to do it. If he didn't he could have made it impossible, like landing on the Sun or traveling faster than the speed of light. God could easily have blocked it with some physics.
Is this like God giving three year old girls leukemia? Or creating creatures which burrow into people's eyes and blind them? That God?
Re: (Score:3)
Hey, he's not incompetent, just a colossal asshole and psychopath.
Re: (Score:2)
My take as a teen was that deep down, under all the frilly fluffy shit the Churches try to preach, is that God is a sadist. His real motto is, "Suffer, bitch."
Imagine my surprise when, decades later, the show Supernatural had the same idea and ran with it. Chuck was a SERIOUS asshole. And pretty much the God we deserve.
Re: (Score:2)
That's because of internal theological conflicts. The same side that wants to teach "God is a micromanager that causes literally everything to happen, so everything that happens is because of God's Will" is the side that ends up hand waving madly to explain why bad things happen, or have internal cognitive dissonance ("I'm rich because it's God's Will, but my enemy is rich because... something else.").
Things get easier if you flip away from micromanagement and determinism towards free will. In that theolo
Re: (Score:2)
God wants us to do it. If he didn't he could have made it impossible, like landing on the Sun or traveling faster than the speed of light. God could easily have blocked it with some physics.
So God wants someone to beat you to death because he didn't make it impossible?
Re: (Score:2)
What kind of god needs the aid of some lowlife to do his dirty business? Ever noticed it? God can do everything... eeeeexept when it comes to actually doing something. Then he needs the help from his followers.
Quite frankly, a god that needs the aid of mere mortals ain't worth worshipping. If you want me to worship your god, at least make it one that can actually do something and doesn't brush off any kind of work on me.
Lazy fuck...
Re: (Score:2)
You are forgetting the whole free will requirement.
God controls the outcome by setting the start condition and environment then letting the pieces do their own thing. Sort of a Rube Goldberg machine. Only because he exists outside of time he can see the outcome at the same time as the start.
As for complaining about using you as a piece in the machine... that is a bit like the cows refusing to worship us because we need them to supply us with food. While I appreciate the cows aren't excited to be dinner, the
Re: (Score:2)
If god already knows how it ends, why bother with the experiment? What's the fun of playing with a toy when you already know how it's gonna end? Unless you're entertained by the suffering, what's the point of this whole bullshit?
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone's going to hell anyway or rather you die and become dust. End of Story. I know. terribly depressing that life really doesn't have any real meaning beyond what you can pull out of it with the short time we get.
Re: (Score:3)
"Everyone's going to hell anyway or rather you die and become dust. End of Story. I know."
Thinking it is likely the case would make you agnostic but thinking you know something which is fundamentally unknowable, that is a faith.
Re: (Score:2)
Philosophy is sitting in a dark room, looking for a black cat that isn't there.
Religion is sitting in a dark room, looking for a black cat that isn't there and yelling "I got it!"
Science is turning on the flashlight.
Re: (Score:2)
Satanism is looking for a black goat in a dark room which is mostly a lot of hippies groping around and feeling each other?
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds more like a Furry con.
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, so what did they come up with as an excuse for god being a lazy fuck?
Re: (Score:2)
Well, God needed humans to have the ability to beat people up. He needed to make it a possible thing for some people and can't have two different laws. So are you saying there are circumstances where two men having babies is legit?
Re: (Score:2)
Religious fundamentalists? What about feminists?! You thought they were pissed about viagra...
They made sperm from female egg cells first but it has been found that additional information is encoded on sperm by the father which can't be replicated. Then again men don't want to get rid of women even if the reverse can't quite be said.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
"Two males can make a baby?"
No. Two males, cutting edge stem cell research, expensive cell cultivation, teams of lab/research assistants, can. By creating female biology in a petri dish. And then fertilize the eggs produced and implanting them in a female womb.
Cute joke, but makes no sense when you actually understand the process.
Re: (Score:2)
Ultimately this was just basic science. I don't think they started with a premise to allow homosexual copies to have biological babies, but instead of stem cell research. But some people won't read it that way and will point their fingers and claim they were against stem cells all along, and other will try to outdo them and say they were against science all along.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
ahh you hurt my feelings. :)
Re: (Score:2)
sarcasm. and you are talking to some one that has a disability that affects ability to spell. also if you tried to understand what i said. this may not be such a big issue for you.
Re: (Score:2)
and to give you a hint. as am sure you are able to extrapolate from one scenario and apply to another read these articales they are short https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/02/1069296/three-parent-baby-technique-risk-of-disease/ and https://www.ox.ac.uk/research/three-parent-baby-raises-issues-long-term-health-risks and https://www.medicaldaily.com/worlds-first-artificial-womb-will-allow-parents-design-custom-made-lab-grown-467594. and instead of looking at some one that can't spell. try to understan
Damn, that's the end of the old joke (Score:4, Funny)
Question for radio Yerevan: Can two man have child?
Answer from radio Yerevan: No. But trials continue.
Mitochondrial DNA (Score:2)
So what's going on here? Ideas? Problems?
I really have no idea but seems like mtDNA could become too homogenous? Is that even a problem?
Re: (Score:2)
What do you mean by homogenous? It's probably not a problem. But, just in case, we could just replicate the mtDNA diversity seen in human populations. The mtDNA genomic code is only around 16,000 base pairs of DNA (compared to the human genome which is 3 billion base pairs).
Re:Mitochondrial DNA (Score:5, Informative)
seems like mtDNA could become too homogenous? Is that even a problem?
It is a problem but this doesn't make it worse.
mtDNA comes from only one parent. If it comes from Dad instead of Mom, that doesn't really change anything.
Re: (Score:2)
Genome sequencing has gotten pretty cheap. Checking that the DNA of the source cells is undamaged should be easy so you don't need to worry about bad "sperm". Checking that the DNA of the combined product is undamaged is simple as well, but you can't do it non-destructively. So that means taking a cell after it has multiplied a number of times. and testing the DNA of that daughter cell. From a technical point of view, this is not much of a problem. The problem is a social one. There are plenty of people who
Mouse behaviour (Score:5, Funny)
Were the fathers named (Score:3)
Bortus and Klyden?
Re: (Score:2)
The arc around that 3-4 episode plotline is more Star Trek than any of the shows actually called Star Trek today. Really well done.
Re: (Score:2)
Except of course the underlying premise that the species was 'all male'. That was Star Trek levels of bad science understanding in the writers' room.
Re: (Score:3)
Except of course the underlying premise that the species was 'all male'. That was Star Trek levels of bad science understanding in the writers' room.
Kinda, but I saw it a bit differently. For the Moclans, everyone is a male, with "male" being a social construct enforced by surgery, and "male" being oviparous. Since it is an "alien" species, the notion of a "male" being oviparous does not come into conflict with the notion of being "male" (non-oviparous) in other species.
It's like the Puppeteer aliens in the Larry Niven's "Known Universe". There are two "males" and a non-sentient "female." From our Terran POV, it's not two "males", but a sperm-produce
Re: (Score:2)
I think luis_a_espinal's comment covers it pretty well, but I just want to add here a few things. First, if anyone has no idea what this is from, the series is _The Orville_, which could not quite decide if it wanted to be a comedy parody of Star Trek or a serious Star Trek-like show and actually managed to do both pretty well. I thought, in a lot of ways the Moclans were brilliant social commentary on gender issues. They culturally maintain the lie that their entire species is "male" with only occasional d
Re: (Score:2)
The arc around that 3-4 episode plotline is more Star Trek than any of the shows actually called Star Trek today. Really well done.
The odd thing about it though, is that the writers went so far into the realm of metaphors that it became difficult to determine if their message was actually intended to be pro-trans or anti-trans. Either that was by design, so people could watch the show and interpret it based on their own preconceptions [reddit.com], in which case it was brilliant writing, or it was just an example of the Analogy Backfire trope [tvtropes.org].
Mackey Has Two Daddies (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's okay (Score:2, Funny)
One of the fathers identified as a women.
Re: (Score:2)
One of the fathers identified as a women.
So you're saying the baby had one father and two mothers?
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it was a typo of course. But thinking back, sure why not: one daddy mouse can identify as two women after all. Stranger things have happened lately...
Re: (Score:2)
If they could just convince the mice to identify as human they could save themselves a whole lot of hassle.
Not a complete solution (Score:4, Interesting)
Two men can now, with the assistance of a laboratory, create a fertilized egg.
Two men can not produce a viable baby, as a biological womb remains a requirement. Two men and a surrogate are needed, so women still have the upper hand here when it comes to the dystopian idea of eliminating an entire sex.
Re: (Score:2)
"Two men can not produce a viable baby, as a biological womb remains a requirement."
They can produce a viable new human, they just can't fully incubate the child or they will be able to if this can be replicated in humans. It is worth remembering though that the limitation on incubation is artificial, we set a cap on how far they are allowed to incubate them before killing them in the lab and science reached the point of being able to incubate them to that limit quite a few years ago.
Re:Not a complete solution (Score:4, Interesting)
Dude, just google artificial womb.
Re: (Score:3)
Two men can not produce a viable baby, as a biological womb remains a requirement. Two men and a surrogate are needed, so women still have the upper hand here when it comes to the dystopian idea of eliminating an entire sex.
I’m not sure why you think this has to be a dystopian model, I mean we are headed that way but it’s not the only option. This just brings us one adjacent step closer to putting a uterus in anyone grown from their own cells and DNA, or having a uterus lab grown and operated for the duration of gestation, and supplying it with eggs made from anyone. That is something many women and men might be interested in. It is fun to watch people gatekeep uteri though.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Not a complete solution (Score:2)
An infite number of managers disagree.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Never heard of an artificial womb? Reference: https://www.theverge.com/2017/... [theverge.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I had not realized the concept had actually gotten this close to reality. It's not clear from the article though if those lambs made it all the way to term. It is clear though that the lambs did not start as embryos. Between the embryo stage and the fetus stage, they still needed to develop in a natural womb. Otherwise, there would be no umbilical cord for them to transplant along with the fetus to the bag. So this is amazing progress, but it still doesn't even attempt to do the really hard bits.
Re: (Score:2)
While this wasn't the point of the science, I think it does point out an odd social thing going on. That is, value placed upon genetic connections to children, enough so that some pay enormous amounts of money to have biological children. Meanwhile, there are plenty of children to be adopted, they're just as good as biological children in every possible way. The price for adoption is higher but the cost of fertility treatments, surrogacy, etc, can be even higher. Personally, I don't get it.
Missing genes? (Score:2)
In humans, X chromosomes have many more genes than Y, but maybe this is not the case for mice. Mice get all the luck. Make-you-muscular drugs, make-you-skinny drugs, etc. It's a good time to be a mouse.
Re: (Score:2)
Do they? Well last I checked they have the same number whether they are male X chromosomes or female.
Re: (Score:3)
As far as the reason mice have all those advantages, it’s because of short gestation times and all the tampering and playing around with them. If you somehow bypassed all the et
Two Feathers? (Score:2)
For some reason, I read this at first as "Mice with two feathers?"
Well we all know what this means (Score:3)
Time for "Loretta" to find a suitable box for the fetus to gestate in.
This Woke thing has gone too far (Score:3)
Mice don't pay tax, so why should we fund research just to benefit same-sex mouse couples? Let's build a fair and just society for _people_ before we start trying to help mice.
Forcing (Score:2)
Some would consider this "unnatural". Has anyone checked this mouse's midichlorian count?
Better headline (Score:2)
genetics and inheritance (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
how does everyone feel about this? in terms of natural selection, is homosexuality more fit than heterosexuality? what are the downsides?
If you're overly concerned about having a gay kid, you're not ready to be a parent. Seriously. Being a parent means loving the kid you were given, not the kid you wish they were.
Why not ONE male parent? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's called a clone, and it is already a thing.
Holy crap, the GNAA was on to something! (Score:2)
They've finally been vindicated! Males being able to reproduce with other males was a large part of their core mission.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually we 'breed' in test tubes on a fairly regular basis and just put them into a female body for incubation. We can already successfully incubate them for as long as is considered ethical artificially and then destroy them... unless we stop destroying them at this point and TRY to incubate them further, that won't be happening.
Re: (Score:2)
Now find a way to breed these abominations outside a womans body and Incels will chant the song of a new age without pesky femoids!
I'm a bit uncomfortable with the term "incel". I know it has come to describe a type, but it did not traditionally mean a misogynist creep. So I'm just going to say misogynist creep. Anyway, from what I can tell, most misogynist creeps of the type you describe are not that interested in having children in the first place. Some exceptions but, even there, their main motivation is