It’s 2018. Same-sex relationships aren’t anything out of the blue. However, if I bring up same-sex mating, then that’s crazy, right? Well, researchers have found a way to make this possible – in mice. Humans will just have to wait, but wouldn’t it be cool if other mammals that only had one sex remaining in their population could reproduce and save their species from going extinct? I’d say that would be pretty cool.
“Mouse” by Liz Henwood. Image from Flickr.
On October 11, 2018, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences led by scientist Qi Zhou published their groundbreaking work in Cell Stem Cell showing how they bred healthy mice from two mothers. The baby mice developed normally to adulthood and even had offspring of their own.
I know what you’re thinking, if two female mice could do it, what about the males? Unfortunately, it didn’t work out the same. Baby mice developed from two biological fathers only survived for about 48 hours.
Normally, mammals can only sexually reproduce, so an egg from a mother and a sperm from a father is required. How is it even possible that two mothers were able to make healthy babies then? The answer: Genetic engineering.
“Baby Mice” by Hannah Nicklin. Image from Flickr.
The work required an egg from one female mouse and a special cell from the other female that carries half of the genetic information to make the baby, called the haploid embryonic stem cell. Simply fusing the egg and cell together didn’t cut it, so the scientists cut out several genes from the DNA of the haploid stem cell to make the necessary alterations for successful reproduction, and then fused it with the egg. Through trial-and-error gene-cutting, 210 embryos were developed, but only 29 mice lived.
Figure 1. Percentages of Mice Embryo that Survived being Produced from Two Mothers. Total Number of Embryos = 210. Image created by Sonia Sharma, the author.
As shown above in Figure 1, the numbers clearly indicate that this specific genetic engineering technique needs some work as embryo death rates are well above 80%. However, the work did succeed with impressive results seen in the surviving mice.
If similar techniques could be used to successfully have same-sex mammals reproduce in a population left with only one of the sexes, I’d be happy with that. It would be one step closer to preventing another sad extinction.
- Sonia Sharma
