Monkeys made of six different foster
The world's first monkey made of cells from different embryos, has recently seen the light. The researchers behind the creation believes it can have great medical significance.
Three monkeys were born after researchers combined cells from six different embryos at an early stage.
Fetuses planted into female monkeys.
The monkeys are currently four to six months old and is healthy. The small apeungene carries up to six generations in their cells.
- The monkeys are very good, and look the same as all other companies, says Shoukhrat Mitaliapov the Science Fair .
Mitaliapov senior scientist at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, and is part of the U.S. research group that has created the monkeys. They have recently reported their work to the journal Cell .
The researchers believe that the creation of these monkeys can be of great importance in medicine.
The immune system's adaptation
- The utilization we can make this work is that we are better able to see how different cells and the immune system works. It is interesting to see how the immune system adapts to life in a new individual, says Helge Klungland from the Faculty of Medicine.
- I am not surprised that the researchers have received for this work, but the idea behind it is interesting. The way scientists have done this is not new, but they have done with monkeys, however, again, says Klungland.
Previous research on mice
Animals that contain genetically different groups of cells from more than one organism, called chimeric.
Such chimeric is important to study fetal development, but research on this has previously been limited to mice.
- The cells will not melt together, but they stay together and work together to produce tissues and organs, says Mitalipov to the BBC .
Stem cells at the early stage
Dr. Mitalipov and his team used stem cells from embryos, embryonic stem cells, when they were making monkeys. Stem cells have the property that they can give rise to many other types of cells, making it possible for the body to renew tissues and organs. They can also make a copy of itself.
Embryonic stem cells can, in contrast to normal stem cells give rise to all cell types in the body.
The way the researchers made monkey-chimeric was to mix the cells from embryos at a very early stage. When the cells are at this stage, they are called totipotent. Such cells can give rise to whole animals, as distinct from pluripotent stem cells.
The research group's first attempt to create living ape-chimeric were not successful. When the researchers tried to move the stem cells into apefostre when cells were at the pluripotent stage of development.
The pluripotent stage is a fairly late stage in the development of stem cells. At this stage, cells can develop into any tissue in the body, but not to the whole animal.
Apenes cells come from both male and female fetuses. All developed yet as males, because male gensignaler from some of the cells triggered the growth of that particular gender.
