Featured Image Credit: Mitalipov Laboratory
Topics: Science
Callum Jones
In an unprecedented breakthrough, scientists have claimed that they've created early-stage human embryos using other bodily cells that could come from someone other than the biological mother.
The study, published in the journal Nature, was led by Oregon Health and Science University and has significantly changed the game in terms of infertility treatment.
In usual circumstances, egg cells are produced in the mother's ovaries before travelling down to the Fallopian tube to await fertilisation from the father's sperm, which creates an embryo that develops into a foetus, then becomes a baby as the pregnancy progresses.
And in the cases of IVF, the woman often undergoes treatment to produce more eggs to be collected and fertilised outside the uterus, either to be implanted into the mother or a surrogate.
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However, the research team at Oregon Health and Science University has discovered a new technique that sees egg cells being made from DNA extracted from other bodily cells - in this case, skin cells.
As for how this process works, the researchers extracted the nucleus, which contains the entire genetic code needed to construct a person's body, and placed it inside a donor egg that had had its genetic code removed, which is a similar technique that scientists have used to clone animals.
However, before being fertilised with a man's sperm, the egg must discard half of its 46 chromosomes. According to the study, 82 functional eggs were created and fertilised, eventually progressing to the six-day stage.
However, while it's still early days, it is something that was initially believed to be 'impossible', according to Professor Shoukhrat Mitalipov, the director of the Oregon Health and Science University's Centre for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy (via the BBC).
What's even more interesting is that the skin cells do not need to come from a woman, as Mitalipov told The Guardian: "We used female skin cells in this study, but you could use skin cells from males as well.
"You could make eggs for men, and that way, of course, this would be applicable to same-sex couples."
Further research will see experts look into the possibility of how women experiencing infertility problems could benefit from this process.
Professor Mitalipov said that the group who they think would benefit the most would be 'women of advanced maternal age', adding: "Another group are those who have been through chemotherapy because that can affect their ability to have viable eggs."
Meanwhile, Deputy Director of MRC Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh in the UK, Richard Anderson, said (via The Daily Mail): "The ability to generate new eggs would be a major advance. This study shows that the genetic material from skin cells can be used to generate an egg–like cell with the right number of chromosomes to be fertilised and develop into an early embryo."
However, the process is far from perfect, as in some cases, rejected chromosomes can include one of the 23 needed to fight disease, while some miss the 'crossing over' part, where DNA is rearranged.
Professor Mitalipov said: "We have to perfect it. Eventually, I think that's where the future will go because there are more and more patients that cannot have children."