Later it might be possible to breed endangered mammals from a single male.
For the first time, scientists have created cras de ratn from the males.
This increases the distant chance of using the same technique in the human being, although experts caution that very few of the mouse embryos developed into pups and no one knows if this would work in people.
Either way, “it’s a very smart strategy,” he said. Diana Laird, an expert in reproductive and stem cells at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the research. “It is an important step in reproductive and stem cell biology.”
The scientists described their work in a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
First, they took epithelial cells from the tail 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 involves their growth and treatment with a drug, they converted those male mouse stem cells into female cells and produced functional eggs. Finally, they fertilized those eggs and implanted the embryos into female mice. Approximately 1% of the embryos – seven out of 630 – developed into live young.
The pups apparently grew normally and were able to reproduce normally, said the research leader, Katsuhiko Hayashi, from Kyushu University and Osaka University in Japan, during the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing last week.
In a commentary published concurrently with the study of NatureLaird and his colleague, Jonathan Bayerl, They said the work “opens new avenues in reproductive biology and fertility research” for animals and humans. For example, it might later be possible to breed endangered mammals from a single male.
“And it could even provide a model for allowing more people,” such as two-man couples, “to have biological children, while sidestepping the ethical and legal issues of egg donation,” they wrote.
But they also voiced several warnings. The most notable? The technique is extremely inefficient. They said it’s not clear why only a small fraction of the embryos survived; the reasons could be technical or biological. They also stressed that it is too early to know if the protocol would work in human stem cells.
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