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UK Scientists Create a Three-Parent Embryo
Troll-Under-D'Bridge writes "The BBC reports that British scientists have manufactured embryos containing genetic material from a man and two women. Under the procedure developed by scientists from Newcastle University, the nuclei from a father's sperm and a mother's egg are transferred into a second woman's egg 'from which the nucleus had been removed, but which retained its mitochondria.' The research, which may 'help mothers with rare genetic disorders have healthy children,' used embryos left over from in-vitro fertilization treatment."
So Heather REALLY HAS two mommies!
Scientists have found a way to ruin the meaning of "threesome". Is this the true cost of progress?
With the world population exploding and natural resources dwindling, do we really need new ways bring more people into the world?
The definition of biological parentage (as opposed to adopted parentage) has always been genetic. Just because the egg cell came from a third party does not make her a parent. She supplied no DNA. I'm sure that one day scientists will mix and match DNA from three human beings, but that is not what this article is about.
HOT. Science is sexy again.
I have severe moral issues with any procedure which results in the deliberate destruction of an embryo. No, I am not utilitarian yes, I am a deontologist (rule set not act).
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
One of the 'mothers' only contributes mitochondrial DNA, which does not affect any characteristics to the offspring.
Technoli
Just asking.....
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
But she supplied eggs which would allow the genetic parents to develop a healthy child, which indeed makes her a co-parent.
This won't be an issue, however, because there are plenty of women who donate their eggs specifically for this reason.
My question is this: wouldn't this have to happen before meoisis I occurs? If so, how long do the parents have to perform this procedure?
RTFA They're getting the mitochondrial DNA from the host egg.
Not so. Mitochondrial DNA is not contained in the nucleus, but is rather contained in the hosting cell. In a normal fertilization, this is always the mother's mitochondiral DNA, but in this case, it is the egg donor's DNA. Any mitochondrial problems the donor might have had could be expressed by the child even if the two nuclear DNA parents don't have any such issues.
The definition of biological parentage (as opposed to adopted parentage) has always been genetic. Just because the egg cell came from a third party does not make her a parent. She supplied no DNA. I'm sure that one day scientists will mix and match DNA from three human beings, but that is not what this article is about.
but mitochondrial dna has a larger effect then you might think. Specifically metabolism can you imagine two identical twins where one was fat and the other skinny?
The egg donor provides mitochondrial DNA, which is not unimportant to the future health of the child. Many diseases are related to mitochondrial DNA problems.
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
I wonder if this same procedure would work if they took microcondria from animals.
She did contribute DNA, its Mitochondrial DNA (MtDNA). Mitochondrial DNA is unique from the rest of the genome and is not in the nucleus. It is found in the mitochondria.
All MtDNA in humans is transmitted from the mother because it is her mitochondria in the egg that will propagate into each cell as cells divide in development.
So she has contributed genes.
MtDNA from egg donor.
Maternal chromosomal DNA is from the nuclear DNA donor.
Paternal chromosomal DNA is from the sperm.
A very scientific, high tech, in vitro ménage à trois.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
The 2nd mother supplied the mitochondrial dna. So the 2nd mother can claim that some of the child's genetic make-up belongs to her.
Or at least the energy creation portion of the child came from her.
Thats incorrect, as the mitochondria do contain genetic material of their own. This may be use in situations where the 'mother' has mtDNA deffects such as Kearns-Sayre Syndrome, Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy, or Mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, lactic acidosis, and stroke-like episode MELAS. So yes their would be two different females genetic material and one males, in the embryo.
Sounds like what they actually did was clone the baby of two parents using a second woman's egg to grow it in.
The "mitochondrial" DNA is separate from the nucleos DNA. In nature mitochondrial DNA is always wholy inherited from the mother. In this experiment the nucleus DNA for the egg comes from one woman and the mitochondrial DNA comes from the 2nd woman so the embryo does have 3 parents.
The mitochondria are separate from the nuclear chromosomal DNA. The timing of this experiment is only dependent on meiosis in that the chromosomal dna from the mother and father should be the product of meiosis: Haploid.
The mitochondrial DNA is unique and present in the mitochondria themselves. This is part of the understanding that mitochondria are from endosymbionts.
Yup. I was excited when I read the summary, and then rather disappointed. With only 91 chromosomes between my wife and I, we'd really like to see chromosomal donation be available to provide that one extra we need rather than a whole set of 46.
That would depend on whether the source embryo was still in the 1-cell stage or not. The article says the genomic material was taken from a fertilized egg, which would technically imply 1-cell. Taking the genetic material from a 1-cell stage embryo isn't technically cloning, though the procedure is the same. To be cloning it would have to come from a 2+ cell embryo, thereby creating a clone of the source embryo.
It might actually work; particularly if you picked an animal relatively close to humans on the evolutionary tree(since mitochondrial problems tend to kill you good and hard, especially in the wild, mitochondrial features are pretty highly conserved).
That said, using unsupported third party libraries totally voids any support agreements you might have with the vendor...
So, if your mitochondrial mother is Jewish but your chromosomal mother isn't (or vice versa), are you Jewish?
(At least one scholar suggests that the answer is no and that it's only the gestational mother that matters: http://www.jlaw.com/Articles/cloning.html)
My mother is Oriental, since she is from Hong Kong. My father is a white European Jew from Latvia. I'm their biological child, however I'm black like an African. My chums used to joke that I was Angolan.
My parents and the doctors were very surprised when I came out of the womb and I looked like neither of my parents. My mother swears that she has never had intimate relations with a black man.
I'm religious, so I've always considered it a gift directly from God. I think of Him as my Second Father.
Or you could just adopt. Wouldn't be much different would it? You're not having the baby yourself, and you're getting it out of another man's sperm and another woman's egg. The only difference is your mitochondria is present. All I can see it doing is allowing for there to be a relation between the parent and the child genetically, but how much is this going to change things? On top of that, I'm going to guess that this process will be really expensive, so who would want to pay for that sort of thing? I just can't see the point.
They called their earlier attempts "Menage e Trois"
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Wasn't this done about 30 years ago in the US(Maryland maybe?) involving a similar mitochondrial condition?
Which has no effect on the child's DNA. The mitochondria have no effect on the eye color, height, blood type, etc.
so god is black? hmm...
weinersmith
As a parent who has gone through 7 years of infertility, I can say that I find religious objections to new fertility treatments unconscionable. The Church's belief that people who suffer from infertility should "accept the will of god" to be disgusting and akin to telling a cancer patient that they should do the same. The grief suffered by a couple with infertility diseases is as great of that of someone dying of a terminal illness. Imagine if someone stormed into your house, kidnapped your children, and you are powerless to do anything about it. Infertility evokes the same kind of emotions. Forbidding treatment on religious grounds adds insult to injury. In the end, we resolved our infertility by adopting.
There may be no "I" in team, but there's also no "F" in way.
my father and hist twin brother (my uncle). Seriously.
Mitochondrial DNA is also child's DNA...
And since it greatly affects methabolism, it's one of the most important traits of an organism. Certainly can affect one of the traits you list, height.
One that hath name thou can not otter
This is great progress, because it means that lesbian mothers will eventually be able to have children that are genetically related to both parents. This would mean that all their children are female, but they may not mind.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
suggestion: how about replacing normal captcha for submitting as AC with something a bit more complicated? a set of differential equations, perhaps? or maybe require the poster to prove the collatz conjecture, and define a turing machine that can verify the proof?
weinersmith
Darn, I read that headline as "three-patent embryo" and thought it's some kind of IP gripe article.
Never mind, I'm sure the number of patents on this is bigger by the order of magnitude anyways.
And in fact I believe that DNA ancestors studies use mitochondrial DNA. So it is an important contribution in that it breaks a long line of identical mitochondrial DNA within the female ancestors of the embryo.
From what I understand of the present case, the mitochondrial DNA of the mother who supplied the nucleus indeed contained genes for a disease and that is what motivated the change. So the change is not unimportant at all.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Anakin Skywalker's mother, for instance.
non-high midichlorin femaile character, like... not Princess Leia, she clearly has midichlorins. Were there any other females in those movies?
from Han Solo. Or, god forbid, Jar Jar Binks. So, basically, because of the importance of this midichlorinal DNA, Jar Jar could be given Jedi powers? That is messed up.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
Sure, if I replace the word "identical" with "very different".
In normal fertilization, once a single sperm has penetrated the oocyte's (egg) zona pellucida, a cortical reaction occurs within milliseconds to prevent polyspermy. Since the male pronuclei has been delivered into the oocyte, effectively the oocyte ceases to exist as an "egg". A continuum has been triggered that renders the combined cells an embryonic human being - the first effective stage completing at amphimixis - the zygote.
They simply cloned - destroying an existing embryonic human being to replace the pronuclei from two other sources.
Wouldn't them haven't different DNA make them not identical? They'd be fraternal twins which isn't anything more that siblings that share a birth date. Siblings are fat and skinny all the time.
First post! (just in case I am...)
So the child inherits his genes from his parents, but strength in the Force comes from the egg-donor?
Last time they tried that I was a wiseguy and submitted a turing machine which would halt iff the collatz conjecture was true. Next thing you know, Slashdot went down trying to verify whether the thing halted. I don't think my post ever made it either.
can you imagine two identical twins where one was fat and the other skinny?
Yes I know a pair. Both are attractive, but one is single and jogs, the other is married, doesn't exercise, and eats a lot. It's not all in the genes.
I must admit, I stand corrected. Thank you for the insight.
Princess Leia, she clearly has midichlorins. Were there any other females in those movies?
How could you forget Mon Mothma? Even her name is hot.
Nick Lane's book Power, Sex, Suicide and Mitchondria was a fascinating read. Nick proposes several reasons why mitochondria would keep a few of their genes around, when the other 90% have been subsumed into the nucleus. These tend to be for the most crucial proteins in repairing the oxidation damage caused by this powerhouses.
She applied MITOCHONDRIAL DNA. In fact, since mitochondria come from the mother, her contribution is undiluted in the child, unlike those of the other parents.
so god is black? hmm...
Well, many Rastafarians think Haile Selassie I was an incarnation of god, and they're no less likely to be right than any of the others....
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
An existing human embryo is not destroyed. The donor egg is not fertilized in Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer.
The second mother supplied mitochondrial DNA.
The research, which may 'help mothers with rare genetic disorders have healthy children,' used embryos left over from in-vitro fertilization treatment.
No it doesn’t. Since it’s not their child. They are just the breeding machine. Not very cool, if you ask me. But if you want to lie to yourself... it should “work” for people who can stand being superstitious/religious/schizophrenic.
Also, why do I have to be the one who states the obvious: Maybe there is a reason, that people with genetic disorders can’t have children? Maybe it’s not cruel, but just the normal way of life and natural selection? Maybe it’s just like someone not getting a GF, because he’s got some problem...
Yes, it’s hard, if you are born with a genetic disorder or get a disease that makes is impossible for you to reproduce. I can definitely emphasize with that situation. You’re basically “the bad seed” to nature.
But I’m not saying we should just kill people who are like that off. We’re not the Nazis. We’re not in Gattaca.
But what we can do, is fix those disorders and diseases. BUT, only if the one having them wants it so. Because in nature, a mutation has no “good” or “bad” label. Some mutations are GOOD. Some diseases turn out to be an advantage.
So we should concentrate on offering custom gene therapies to everyone equally, and letting people choose if they consider it a disadvantage.
This would even allow us to accelerate natural selection without actually “selecting” any people out (to die). Which, I think, would be a pinnacle of human medicine.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
A group grope?
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
What I'm curious about is if the rest of the nonmitochondrial DNA has somewhat evolved to be more matched with what their "usual" mitochondria can do and prefer.
Basically, would there be any compatibility issues.
Car analogy: I guess having a not so matched engine in your car is usually better than having one that's faulty or fails prematurely?
I have to admit that this makes me nervous.
The mitochondria "code" is supposed to be totally separate from the nuclear "code," but what if it isn't ? Even if the DNA is totally different in heritage, the cell and its mitochondria have evolved together, and that might extend to assuming that certain proteins, say, will be available even though they are produced by the other body. Plop another mitochondria in there, and there might be problems down the road.
Yes. It was tragically hilarious...
It could be a long-dormant genetic thing. My mother’s brother and his entire family look like they have a great tan, at all times. Because that side of the family is Irish through and through, we’re guessing that there’s some Black Irish in our family—long-since descendants of Spanish and Portuguese settlers in Ireland—and my uncle, for whatever reason, wound up with a phenotype that expresses it.
Of course, how that would come through Hong Kong and a Latvian Jew, I can’t explain, but I’m also not a geneticist maybe your mother has some ancient Australian Aboriginal ancestors?
Matthew G P Coe
http://mgpcoe.blogspot.com/
Think about it. We got gay marriage.
Next up is the species barrier?
...to the five-assed monkey!
" The research, which may 'help mothers with rare genetic disorders have healthy children..."
OR
"The research, which is one more step down the road to well-to-do parents being able to manufacture genetically flawless children..."
Hm, interesting question; OTOH children of parents who are very distant, as far as ethnic background goes, are supposedly more likely to be healthy, etc. Even though in this case the nuclear DNA is bound to be a mix od two sets which would have to be "matched" (if that indeed occurs) to their local mitchondrial DNA; but the mix has to cooperate only with one original set of mtDNA.
One that hath name thou can not otter
3 really is the magic number.
It happens. Look up "epigenetics." Time Magazine had an article on the subject in January ("Why your DNA is not your destiny", or something like that), and there was a Discovery Channel program on the subject I saw a year or two ago. IIRC from the DC program, there is a breed of hamster or guinea pig or something that has a disorder that causes certain individuals to not metabolize food correctly. These individuals are always hungry, always eating and consequently much larger than average. Genetically identical twins do not always display the same trait, however. What researchers found is that DNA alone does not determine your characteristics. Without the presence of certain chemical receptors in the body, your DNA sequences can't be activated -- the DNA mode code for specific proteins to be produced, but if your body doesn't have the right chemical factories to build those proteins, they *won't* be produced (that's the really dumbed-down executive summary because IANA molecular biologist and it's been a while since I saw the program).
Okay, people are neither hamsters nor guinea pigs, but similar things happen in homo sapiens, too. Again, IIRC from the DC program mentioned above, researches found a genetic sequence that is always present in autism. However, not everyone who has the DNA sequence has autism. However, everyone that they tested who has the DNA sequence and a certain sequence of chemical receptors for that DNA sequence does, and no one they tested who has the DNA sequence for autism but a different chemical receptor sequence displayed symptoms of autism. Interesting stuff...
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
My mother swears that she has never had intimate relations with a black man.
I'm religious, so I've always considered it a gift directly from God. I think of Him as my Second Father.
DENIAL OVERLOAD
What is this, The Discovery of Hell?
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
All I could think of when I read this was "Twin Sons From Different Mothers"
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
I applaud any science achievement, for whatever reason. However every-time I read a story like this, and octomom, etc the first thing that comes to mind is adoption. Yea I was adopted so that contributes to my feelings on the subject, but the whole "Need" to have YOUR kid, well it just seems ridiculous to me
This is akin to slapping a Honda motor into a Chrysler body with Toyota ignition and response electronics. I fear for the child and the descendants of this process. They are a guinea pig. As long as genetically the individuals are very closely related I could see this working relatively well... and a healthy child being the result... but this type of effort is misguided and frankly selfish. There is a reason people cannot have children, and its part of the selection process. There are aspects of recombination and expression which are essentially unknown or very poorly understood at best. This is foolish.
which is not unimportant
I think you mean:
which is important
I am not usually one to pick on double negatives as I abuse them myself plenty. However, this was needless obfuscation and, at first glance, was confusing enough to take away from the content of your sentence.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
How wrong can you get? Science has not "proven that there is no god", and there certainly are absolute truths eg. electrons and protons have opposite charge. I think you need to rethink your understanding of what science is. I am not a deist, nor do I believe in allowing superstition control scientific research, but statements like yours are just giving ammunition to the fundamentalists. We have to keep our own rules of logic and evidence, even if they don't.
nec sorte nec fato
Looks like now it will be possible to be half Irish, half English, and half German.
Also, this comic.
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
FFS just adopt.
If we attempt to create children from the DNA of several parents, is there not a danger that the resulting twins may bear a strong resemblance to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito?
All MtDNA in humans is transmitted from the mother because it is her mitochondria in the egg that will propagate into each cell as cells divide in development.
Everyone believes this (the "all MtDNA is transmitted from the mother"), but it doesn't seem to universally be the case. There is even some mitochondrial variation in the various tissues of the same person (every person tested). Usually it is small (1 allele variation), but not always. I'm not sure of the mechanism yet, but the changes do not appear to be simple mutations (although, of course, the mutation rate of MtDNA is obviously higher that elsewhere). Instead, it seems to be something (still not fully understood) that happens during fertilization since the pattern seems to match those of the other parent about 70% of the time.
Yo dawg, I heard you liked having mothers...
Just do a DNA test, end of story.
Interesting. I am going by the current generally accepted knowledge, but it sounds like you're aware of some groundbreaking new research in the field.
Maybe the maternal mitochondria are largely present in the egg (in large numbers) and thus are responsible for the high presence of its replicates in subsequent tissues from development--- but while the sperm may donate a couple during sperm fusion with the egg... From my knowledge the majority of mitochondria in sperm are located in the tail, which does not enter the egg upon fertilization. But maybe there are a few paternal Mt in other places that end up in the egg!
I would guess that since Mt are endosymbionts and aren't really competing with each other, that maybe the original dose (more from mom less from dad) relates to the later found distribution of primarliy maternal mitochondria?
This is an interesting point, to say the least, and when I get a minute I'll definitely look into it.
I realize I'm responding to an anonymous coward, but maybe you'll come back. I have a question. If other-than-maternal Mt are present, how is it that these heterogenous distributions of Mt don't produce confounding results in MtDNA SNP analyses that are used to trace human history?
The single one just needs a wife.
My English friend's family is fairly stereotypically pasty white, except for my friend. She has a very tan complexion and her facial structure and figure differ significantly from other women in her family. She didn't understand why until she did some digging and discovered that her great-grandmother grew up in Kenya and the Seychelles, and that her great-great-grandmother was Kenyan and was married to an Indian man. The rest of her family as far back as she could tell was from England. It just took a few generations for some of the Kenyan and Indian traits to become visible again.
...OR...has science given us a reason to move on to the standard golf group, the foursome? :-)
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
> so god is black?
Technically, He's a Jew.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
so god is black? hmm...
Are you wondering "hmm, how large is his penis?"
Not unimportant does not mean the same thing as important, in the same way that not unnecessary does not mean the same thing as necessary. I'm not saying GP used it right, but double negatives like this convey different meanings.
Yeah, so it's probably not an issue.
I heard they're not as fertile though. Maybe that's due to other reasons, but if the fertility rates are really lower it might be stuff being caught in "QC" early...
I searched the comments and there weren't any about how this could allow homosexuals to reproduce.
I wonder if the procedure could be used in such a way that the genetic material from two sperm is injected into an empty egg, or a the genetic material from one egg inserted into another. This procedure even seems as though it could allow for asexual reproduction for women.
It's fascinating to note that if two women reproduce, or if a woman asexually reproduces, then the offspring will always be female.
The real winners are the writers of Law & Order who have a great 3-way custody episode to create.
Raisinettes are my raison d'etre