In a groundbreaking study published in PNAS, researchers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University successfully created healthy, fertile mice using genetic material from two male mice. This significant advancement, led by Yanchang Wei, involved combining two sperm cells within an egg whose nucleus was removed, utilizing gene-editing techniques to develop embryos that were implanted in surrogate mice. While some implications exist for future same-sex parenting possibilities, experts caution against immediate application to human biology, noting the complex nature of genomic imprinting in mammalian reproduction.
In this study, we report the generation of fertile androgenetic mice. Our findings, together with previous achievements of uni-parental reproduction in mammals, support previous speculation that genomic imprinting is the fundamental barrier to the full-term development of uni-parental mammalian embryos.
The health and fertility of the bi-paternal mice could have implications for human same-sex parents in the future - helping two men to have genetic children of their own.
While mice with two mothers and no father hit the news in 2004, and mice with two biological fathers were created two years ago, this is the first time mice born to two fathers have gone on to have their own pups.
A team at China's Shanghai Jiao Tong University, led by Yanchang Wei, managed to create the bi-paternal mice by putting two sperm cells together in an egg whose nucleus had been removed.
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