Quote:
Within a day of uniting egg and sperm using in vitro fertilization, nuclear DNA is removed from the embryo and implanted into a donor egg, whose own nucleus has been removed and discarded.
The resulting embryo inherits nuclear DNA, or genes, from both its parents but mitochondrial DNA from a second “mother“ who donated the healthy egg. In humans, about 37 genes are found in the mitochondria – the rest of the more than 20,000 known genes are in the DNA found in the nucleus.
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1535143/
some interesting ethical questions
Quote:
For critics like Josephine Quintavalle of campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics that makes it “a step too far in meddling with the building blocks of human life.”
“No matter how small the contribution from the egg of the donor woman, the fact remains that an attempt is being made to create a three-parent child,” she said.
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I wonder if they could get around this by using a de-nucleated somatic cell from the father. Then there would only be two "parents". The obvious scientific issue would then be if the transplanted nucleus is sufficient for embryogenesis, or does it require maternal cytoplasmic factors. Pretty sure others have already shown that the later is not required