Amazing stuff! This could be a breakthrough since cloning of Dolly the sheep in 1996.
When will the first human baby be born from an artificial womb outside a woman's body? I bet it could happen within the next 10-20 years.
The Oregon based researchers could not resist to mention "... this method would allow for the possibility of same-sex couples to have a child genetically related to both partners ..."
"Creating human eggs from adult cells just got one step closer to reality.
A technique used in cloning combined with fertilization and a bit of chemical coaxing caused human skin cells to produce eggs able to give rise to early human embryos ...
The effort is the latest attempt to make eggs and sperm from human cells. Researchers have already succeeded in making these important cell types from many types of animals, including pandas. But producing human eggs and sperm has proven elusive. ..."
From the abstract:
"Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) enables the direct reprogramming of somatic cells into functional oocytes, albeit with a diploid genome.
To address ploidy reduction, we investigated an experimental reductive cell division process, termed mitomeiosis, wherein non-replicated (2n2c) somatic genomes are prematurely forced to divide following transplantation into the metaphase cytoplasm of enucleated human oocytes.
However, despite fertilization with sperm, SCNT oocytes remained arrested at the metaphase stage, indicating activation failure.
Artificial activation using a selective cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor successfully bypassed this arrest, inducing the segregation of somatic chromosomes into a zygotic pronucleus and a polar body.
Comprehensive chromosome tracing via sequencing revealed that homologous chromosome segregation occurred randomly and without crossover recombination. Nonetheless, an average of 23 somatic chromosomes were retained within the zygote, demonstrating the feasibility of experimentally halving the diploid chromosome set.
Fertilized human SCNT oocytes progressed through normal embryonic cell divisions, ultimately developing into embryos with integrated somatic and sperm-derived chromosomes. While our study demonstrates the potential of mitomeiosis for in vitro gametogenesis, at this stage it remains just a proof of concept and further research is required to ensure efficacy and safety before future clinical applications."
OHSU researchers develop functional eggs from human skin cells (original news release)
Fig. 1: Ploidy reduction by mitomeiosis.
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