Some help from those with scientific leanings, please?

[Dust and Ashes]

I ran across this in OBOB and was wondering if someone could clear it up for me.

That article is a bit confusing to me. It seems that the bulk of the article is talking about injecting donor mitochondrial DNA into the nucleus of a fertilized egg to "fix" damaged mDNA and that it isn't altering the genetic makeup of the embryo since the mitochondria is just the energy source for the cell. This I wouldn't have a problem with as it might be a way of helping women with some genetic problem have healthy children.


But then they skip to ethical concerns in the next paragraph as if they were talking about using another woman's DNA to fertilize an egg. I'm confused. Are they discussing concerns that this technique might lead to creating embryos with 2 mothers or is there some ethical concern about the procedure itself? Thanks.

 

[gluadys]

I ran across this in OBOB and was wondering if someone could clear it up for me.

That article is a bit confusing to me. It seems that the bulk of the article is talking about injecting donor mitochondrial DNA into the nucleus of a fertilized egg to "fix" damaged mDNA and that it isn't altering the genetic makeup of the embryo since the mitochondria is just the energy source for the cell. This I wouldn't have a problem with as it might be a way of helping women with some genetic problem have healthy children.


But then they skip to ethical concerns in the next paragraph as if they were talking about using another woman's DNA to fertilize an egg. I'm confused. Are they discussing concerns that this technique might lead to creating embryos with 2 mothers or is there some ethical concern about the procedure itself? Thanks.

Well, they are not talking about fertilizing an egg at all. They are talking about transferring material from one egg that is already fertilized to another which is already fertilized.

And in both cases they are talking about modifying the DNA of the mitichondria, not that of the cell nucleus.

They do mention two different techniques of dealing with mitichondrial disease. One, already in use, involves taking ooplasm containing healthy mitochondria from one egg and inserting it into the fertilized egg of another woman who has defective mitochondria. That's the technique by which 15 healthy chilldren have been born to mothers with defective mitochondria.

The other, tried in mice, but not yet in humans, involves transferring the protonuclei which goes on to form the cell nucleus, from a cell with defective mitochondria to one with good mitochondria.

Ethically, I don't see any significant difference between the two techniques. As you say, it isn't altering the genetic makeup of the embryo. It is affecting only the genetic makeup of the mitochondria, which is naturally different from that of the cell nucleus anyway. And I am not so sure that it would be a huge ethical problem even if the genome of the cell nucleus were changed anyway.

So I don't understand the basis for the protest.

 

[Dust and Ashes]

Thank you for the explanation. It makes a lot more sense now.

 

[shernren]

The basis of the protest is that to pro-life people a fertilised embryo is conceptually and theologically a human and therefore deserves basic human rights, including the right to not dying in unconsented medical experimentation.