Chinese scientists in a breakthrough study created the first-ever mice with two fathers through embryonic stem cell engineering.
According to Deberief, the study published in the journal Cell Stem Cell explained how a specific set of reproductive genes could produce a bi-parental mouse that lived to adulthood with good health.
The researchers wrote in the paper, “We show that correcting 20 imprinted loci enables the development of viable bi-paternal mice.”
Scientists have observed that some animals, like lizards, can have babies without a male partner, but this phenomenon was not observed among mammals.
One of the lead authors of the study, Qi Zhou, explained, “The unique characteristics of imprinting genes have led scientists to believe that they are a fundamental barrier to unisexual reproduction in mammals.”
Moreover, a co-corresponding author Guan-Zheng Luo of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou said, “These findings provide strong evidence that imprinting abnormalities are the main barrier to mammalian unisexual reproduction. This approach can significantly improve the developmental outcomes of embryonic stem cells and cloned animals, paving a promising path for the advancement of regenerative medicine.”
Scientists successfully made mice with two mothers over 20 years ago, but making mice with two fathers was much harder and took longer for the scientists to accomplish this.
