 Random news from the Archive Created a hybrid of man and sheep
18.02.2018
Biologists from California have grown embryos for the first time, including human and sheep cells.
Work on the creation of chimeras - organisms consisting of genetically heterogeneous cells - has been going on for about a decade and a half. Scientists want to be able to grow full-fledged organs, which could then be transplanted into humans, and which would not be rejected during transplantation. In addition, such experiments could allow for safer testing of new drugs. At the same time, such actions of scientists are rather limited due to discussions about their ethics.
In a new experiment, scientists were able to successfully implant human cells into sheep fetuses at a ratio of about 1 in 10 cells. The embryos successfully developed within 28 days (of which 21 days they were directly inside a living sheep) - as biologists note, this period is enough to understand that they could develop into a full-fledged living organism. After that, the experiment was terminated for ethical reasons.
Human cells were introduced into sheep embryos using CRISPR/Cas9 technology - it allows you to specifically change individual genes in the cells of the body.
The authors of the work emphasize that it remains unclear how exactly human cells can affect the appearance of sheep and the functioning of their nervous system. They expressed the opinion that this requires a longer experiment, which would last at least 70 days. At the same time, scientists emphasize that in any case, in order to grow a full-fledged organ, it is necessary to significantly increase the number of human cells - the ratio with animal cells should be approximately one to a hundred.
A similar experiment was carried out in early 2017 with pigs. The embryos also developed normally for 28 days, the ratio of human and porcine cells was about 1 per 100. After that, they were removed from the body of the sow. Sheep, according to scientists, are more promising for growing human organs than pigs, since experiments have shown that much fewer embryos are needed to successfully create a chimera based on a sheep.
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