Will Same-Sex Couples Be Able to Have Children... Successful Egg and Birth from Male Mice

Japanese Researchers Produce Eggs from Male Somatic Cells
"Offspring Mice Healthy and Normal Lifespan"

Researchers at Kyushu University in Japan have succeeded in creating baby mice from two male mice, drawing attention from the scientific community. This development is seen as opening up entirely new possibilities for reproduction methods.

On the 8th (local time), the British media outlet 'The Guardian' reported that Professor Hayashi Katsuhiko from the Faculty of Medicine at Kyushu University announced the success of the 'male mouse couple breeding experiment' at the 3rd International Human Genome Editing Conference held at the Francis Crick Institute (FCI) in London.

Professor Hayashi, who led the research, stated, "This is the first case of creating eggs from male somatic cells." He is known as a pioneer in the technology of culturing eggs, sperm, and other reproductive cells in the laboratory.

The research team collected somatic cells from male mice and converted them into stem cells, then created induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS). iPS cells are pluripotent stem cells capable of transforming into all somatic cells, including reproductive cells, developed in 2006 by Professor Yamanaka Shinya's team at Kyoto University in Japan. Professor Yamanaka was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2012 for this technology.

The researchers deleted the Y chromosome from the iPS cells and added an X chromosome borrowed from another cell. Through this, they created iPS cells with XX chromosomes to produce eggs.

Laboratory mouse. The photo is unrelated to specific expressions in the article. [Image source=Yonhap News]

They then fertilized these eggs with sperm from another male mouse and cultured 600 embryos. The embryos were implanted into the bodies of other mice, resulting in the successful birth of a total of seven baby mice.

Regarding this, Professor Hayashi stated, "The health condition of the baby mice is good, and their lifespan is normal," adding, "They grew up and also produced offspring." He also predicted that the stem cell technology underlying this experiment could be applied to humans within 10 years. The method involves creating fertilized eggs from skin somatic cells of males.

However, The Guardian reported that some in the academic community criticized Professor Hayashi's proposed development roadmap as overly optimistic. According to the media, there has never been a successful case of culturing artificial fertilized eggs in the laboratory so far. Creating mature eggs from human somatic cells requires a much longer cultivation period than in other animals, and there is a high possibility of cell deterioration during this process.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.