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Stem Cells Change Man's DNA
An anonymous reader writes "After receiving umbilical cord stem cells to replace bone marrow as treatment for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Greg Graves temporarily had three different sets of DNA. Eventually, one of the two sets of cells transplanted into his bone marrow took root, leaving him different DNA in his blood from the rest of his body: 'If you were to do a DNA test of my blood and one from my skin, they'd be different,' Graves said. 'It's a pretty wild thing.'"
Perhaps this is the beginning of the end for the use of DNA as "incontrovertable" evidence in criminal cases?
Mary from the trailor park once had 12 different sets of DNA inside her.
The football team won that night, everybody scored.
liqbase
Does this mean Mr. Graves is the world's first man-made chimera?
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
Like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Fairchild
Summary: Woman is a Chimera (two sets of DNA), and gets a paternity test, first one fails, second succeds because they take from another part of her body.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
We've been doing bone marrow stem-cell transplants for years on people with hematopoietic neoplasms. In fact, we've been doing solid organ transplants for about 40 years. Of course they will have different DNA! In fact, even a normal person has different sets of DNA right now. This is most evident in germ cells, which undergo meiosis, and antibody-producing hematopoietic cells, which change their DNA to be able to make different antibodies to different antigens. So I don't see why this is news.
The procedure is called an Allogenic Stem Cell Transplant. The procedure has been in use for well over a decade, and it replaced the old Bone Marrow Transplant techniques that used to be used for conditions such as leukemia, various cancers, lymphoma, and other immune system disorders.
The only thing remarkable about this is the fact that the stem cells the man received were from cord blood instead of adult stem cells from a matched donor.
Wikipedia has an excellent article on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell_transplantation
The applicable section to this article reads as such:
"Umbilical cord blood is obtained when a mother donates her infant's umbilical cord and placenta after birth. Cord blood has a higher concentration of HSC (hematopoietic stem cells --ed.) than is normally found in adult blood. However, the small quantity of blood obtained from an umbilical cord (typically about 50 mL) makes it more suitable for transplantation into small children than into adults. Newer techniques using ex-vivo expansion of cord blood units or the use of two cord blood units from different donors are being explored to allow cord blood transplants to be used in adults."
I spent six months in Seattle as a caregiver for a patient undergoing this procedure. The work they do at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center there is second to none.
Lawyer: "This is not the DNA you are looking for."
Meh, a real sig would take too long, and I have an MMORPG to play with....
In answer to your question "While this is an amazing break-through what will happen if this guy has offspring?", the answer is nothing. At least, nothing different than if he hadn't had stem cells implanted. For there to be any difference, there would've had to have replaced the spermatogonia.
in that episode, there was a man who cleverly attempted to avoid culpability in a murder because his blood was a different genotype than the rest of him, because he was a chimera. the csi team spends much time in vain trying to pin the murder on the murderer's brothers, because genetic tests indicate he is related to the "real" murderer
real but extremely rare, it developmentally consists of nonidentical twins in the womb whose embryos fuse very early on, when that is still possible (when they are only a couple of hundred cells, for example)
then the organism consists of one individual, but one organ system might be a completely different genetic makeup than another organism. so sombody's nervous system could be genetic code A, while his spleen could be genetic code B. chimeras can go through life having no idea what they are, but sometimes, you can see it on their skin (a subtle zebra striping)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Seems to me that the stem cells added new DNA material, it didn't mutate his existing DNA material.. so why use the word change?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
It's ok. Calm down. Deep breath. This is actually not a terribly uncommon event when bone marrow transplants are used. The news seems to be that instead of transplanted bone marrow, he had stem cells from two different donors infused, and for a while both were found in his blood, but after a period of time only one of the lines seemed to survive. The "news" seems to be that this used stem cells which differentiated into new bone marrow for the patient.
If it had been a "traditional" bone marrow transplant, he would STILL have had a second set of DNA found in his blood. This is becasue for this therapy to work, all of his native bone marrow is destroyed, completely. He will be physically incapable of making his own red, white, and platelet cells. The donor donated marrow is then given to him in the hopes that it will "take root" where his now-ablated marrow once was, and will take that function. It's just like a kidney or heart transplant, just much wetter.
As for offspring due to the implanted cells, not gonna happen. The Gonads are very well protected from things like this, and just like with a transplanted solid organ, this only affects the somatic cells, not the germ cells created in his testes.
So, just remember, think of the bone marrow and blood as another organ, and this is just another organ transplant. His biggest concern would be the effects of his chemo and radiation on his gonads, not the transplanted cells. Make sense?
First of all, a bone marrow transplant is not currently something Joey Pants can do for you in his brooklyn apartment in 30 minutes just to change your DNA. And the cost and time in the procedure is far greater than simply shaving your body hair, washing down throughly to get dead skin off your body, and wearing thick tight clothes to keep you from shedding any DNA.
Second, there are plenty of documented cases of someone being a "Chimera" where they contain two sets of DNA in their body. It's usually when an embryo absorbs a twin in the womb. I don't know if there are any true cases out there in the books where a Chimera was tried for a case, but it's known. Science is well aware that DNA is not 100% foolproof, which is why you have probability matches when testing DNA normally. These will simply be bumps in the road and science will adapt. This is nothing new to DNA research. Most likely forensics labs will begin to require taking multiple samples from multiple areas depending on the DNA evidence found. If you left blood at the scene of the crime, why take DNA from your cheek if there's a chance the criminal is a Chimera or a bone marrow transplantee.
Third, the law will catch up with this. Defense attorneys will use this to create reasonable doubt, and prosecutors will counter to learn about this, while forensics keeps up with the latest scientific trends.
On the other hand, DNA identification methods for businesses will be completely fucked if someone gets a marrow transplant or is a Chimera and doesn't know it.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Watch the Documentary from Discovery channel titled "I am my own Twin"
This happens naturally in lots of people.
It even touches on the subject of pigmentation - where babies of interracial couples are born with "checkberboard" skin.
I am a pediatric blood and marrow transplant physician. After every successful bone marrow transplant (BMT), peripheral blood stem cell transplant (PBSCT), or umbilical cord blood transplant (UCBT) in which the donor is not the patient or an identical twin, the recipient becomes genetic chimera. The DNA in cells derived from the bone marrow stem cells is different from the DNA in the rest of the recipient's body.
As others have pointed out, this isn't anything new. Significant clinical use of BMT dates back to the 1970's. PBSCT and UCBT came into widespread use in the late 1980's and early 1990's.
My group performed a BMT on a patient with relapsed leukemia a few years ago. The patient unfortunately suffered liver and kidney damage as a result of the BMT. He had a liver transplanted from one donor and later a kidney from another donor. Fortunately, he recovered and has remained leukemia free. He is essentially back to being a normal kid, although he will need to take immunosuppressive mediations to prevent rejection indefinitely. That patient permanently has DNA from 4 different sources (bone marrow, liver, kidney, and his original genotype in all other parts of his body).
I think the responses so far are missing the OP's point.
I didn't read his post thinking, "OMG, no more DNA evidence within a few years!" I'm guessing he meant that eventually through the use of various technologies for various reasons, it will be possible for criminals to be genetically altered in such a way that making identifying them using DNA will be difficult. It may be 50 years, 100 years, or 200 years, but as we get better and better at munging up our DNA, it is possible.
Also, that totally neglects that at some point in the future, when the technology behind this kind of stuff becomes pervasive enough, high tech criminals may deliberately have their DNA altered for the specific purpose of thwarting identification.
Yes, he would be a chimera at least for the time being. He has multiple DNA sources in his body and since both types of DNA can be obtained through blood, he could show up as two separate individuals if DNA testing were performed.
The Lydia Fairchild story is an interesting read. It's rare but it does happen.
Fast forward 20 years - you have long since outgrown your reckless youth, are a responsible, caring member of society and as part of that you give blood and registered in the bone marrow database.
You're called - there's someone in another state that needs marrow, and you're a match! You're actually thrilled at the idea of being a part of saving a life. A young teenager needs your help. You know what it's like to be a teen who needs help.
Another 10 years pass and someone is murdered. Blood samples show not only the victim's blood, but the attacker's - she got in a few scratches before succumbing. They test the DNA, search the database, and BINGO - YOU'RE the match. You were on vacation in Barcelona, your wife swears its true. But hey, the expert says you have to be the guy, and so you get the death penalty for the vicious murder.
You could have gotten off with life in prison, but since you are so cold, so uncaring, so unwilling to show remorse for your crime, protesting your innocence all along, they show no mercy.
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