Chinese Scientists Got Same Sex Mice To Have Babies, Using Stem Cells & Gene Editing Technology

Homesexual couples may be ever so slowly gaining acceptance around the world, but it's still biologically impossible for them to conceive a child on their own.

But a scientific breakthrough involving two same sex mice may change all of that very soon.

Images courtesy: Leyun Wang

A team of scientists in China have been trying to produce viable offspring between same-sex pairs of mice. To do that, they¡¯ve been using cutting-edge stem cell therapy and gene editing. It¡¯s the first time this kind of technology has been successfully implemented, though there has been research conducted before.

The team was able to produce viable babies from both male and female pairs, unfortunately those from the male pairs didn¡¯t fair as well. They only survived about 48 hours after birth, despite all attempts made to produce healthy babies. The female pair babies on the other hand turned out very well, going on to eventually create progeny of their own.

Why this is such a wonderful feat

Same-sex reproduction is rare but not non-existent in nature. In fact, some reptiles and fish can procreate with a single parent, though it¡¯s much more complex for mammals. ¡°We were interested in the question of why mammals can only undergo sexual reproduction,¡± one of the senior authors, Qi Zhou from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, mentioned in the study.

During the reproduction process, mammals inherit two sets of genes, one each from the mother and father. However, a small subset of genes, known as "imprinted" genes, are inherited from only one parent. In this case, the imprinted genes from the other parent are inactive, having been naturally turned off during the process. Without that measure, the baby mammal could suffer abnormalities and die. That¡¯s what made mixing the genes of two same-sex couples so complex.

After using gene editing to turn one set of imprinted genes off, they were injected into the eggs of another mouse along with the partner. Instead of fertilization, the scientists directly combined genes within the egg.

Using two sets of female mice DNA, the scientists managed to produce 29 babies from 210 embryos, all of which lived to adulthood and reproduced normally after. Unfortunately, they still don¡¯t know why the male-produced mice didn¡¯t live longer than two days.

Of course, the research is merely theoretical right now, but it could have a widespread impact on the whole world. A decade or so from now, homosexual couples could finally be able to conceive a child with their own genetic makeup, instead of requiring a sperm or egg donor, or needing to adopt. Of course, along with that comes the inevitable blowback from religions across the world as well, the same way it did when cloning was first experimented with.