Designer sperm inserts faulty genes into offspring

Designer sperm inserts faulty genes into offspring
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Designer Sperm Inserts Faulty Genes Into Offspring. Genes Inserted Into Offspring

London: Scientist have found that "Designer sperm" can be used to change faulty genes of future generations by introducing new, functioning genes. A new study shows that introducing new genetic material via a viral vector into the sperm of mice leads to the presence and activity of those genes in the resulting embryos.
Designer Sperm Inserts Faulty Genes Into OffspringThis new genetic material is actually inherited, present and functioning through three generations of the mice tested.Scientists said that if this discovery is successful in humans. It could lead to a new frontier in genetic medicine in which diseases and disorders are effectively cured, and new human attributes, such as organ regeneration, may be possible.

Anil Chandrashekran, study author from the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences at The Royal Veterinary College, UK said that "Transgenic technology is a most important tool for researching all kinds of disease in humans and animals, and for understanding crucial problems in biology."

To achieve these results, Chandrashekran and colleagues used lentiviruses to generate transgenic animals via the male germ line.When pseudo typed lentiviral vectors encoding green fluorescent protein (GFP) were incubated with mouse spermatozoa, these sperm were highly successful in producing transgenics.

Lentivirally-transduced mouse spermatozoa were used in in vitro fertilisation studies and when followed by embryo transfer, at least 42 per cent of founders were transgenic for GFP.

GFP expression was detected in a wide range of murine tissues, including testis and the transgene was stably transmitted to a third generation of transgenic animals.

Gerald Weissmann, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, where the research was published said that “Using modified sperm to insert genetic material has the potential to be a major breakthrough not only in future research, but also in human medicine."



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