金融時報:兩名男性生孩子，不遠了？

兩名男性生孩子，不遠了？

英國的研究者稱，這項研究可能在原則上為一種“推測和幻想”情境打開了大門，即精子可以讓取自皮膚或其他組織的成年體細胞受精。這甚至可以在無需女性參與的情況下，讓兩名男性成為一名嬰兒的生身父母。

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

offspring后代['?fspr??]

fertilise使受精；施肥于；使肥沃['f?:tilaiz]

embryology胚胎學[,embr?'?l?d??]

parthenogenetic[胚] 孤雌生殖的[,pɑrθ?nod??'n?t?k]

embryo[胚] 胚胎

tissue組織['t??u?; 't?sju?]

dogma教條，教理；武斷的意見['d?gm?]

mammalian哺乳類[m?'me?l??n]

sperm精子；精液；鯨蠟油[sp??m]

haploid[細胞][遺] 單倍體['h?pl??d]

Scientists create life without fertilising an egg （575words）

By Clive Cookson,Science Editor

Scientists have produced healthy offspring without fertilising an egg in a breakthrough that overturns the fundamental principles of embryology.

Bath University biologists bred baby mice by injecting sperm into a non-viable type of embryo called a parthenogenote. This has dividing cells that are fundamentally different from eggs and more like cells elsewhere in the body.

Tony Perry, senior author of the study, said the research could in principle open the way to a “speculative and fanciful” scenario in which sperm are made to fertilise adult cells derived from skin or other tissue. It could even allow two men to become the biological parents of a baby, without female involvement.

“Our work challenges the dogma, held since early embryologists first observed mammalian eggs and fertilisation [in the 19th century], that only an egg cell fertilised with a sperm cell can result in a live mammalian birth,” said Dr Perry, senior author of the study.

“This is an exciting piece of research which may help us to understand more about how human life begins and what controls the viability of embryos — mechanisms which may be important in fertility,” said Paul Colville-Nash, programme manager for developmental biology at the Medical Research Council, which funded the work. “It may one day even have implications for how we treat infertility, though that's probably still a long way off.”

The study, which is published in Nature Communications, began with the chemical stimulation of an unfertilised mouse egg to develop into a parthenogenote. Normally this dies within a few days because it lacks the genetic input from sperm that enables a normal embryo to grow.

The Bath team, which included two Japanese embryologists, Toru Suzuki and Maki Asami, then injected sperm into the parthenogenote. They adapted a technique called Icsi that is frequently used in human IVF fertility treatment to inject sperm into eggs.

Their version, called Phicsi (for parthenogenetic haploid Icsi), triggered the parthenogenote to develop into a normal embryo with genes from both parents: the sperm donor and the original embryo donor. The first pair of mice produced in this way, named Phicsim and Phicsia, grew into healthy adults that then had offspring of their own.

Although the animals seem normal, they are distinctly different from other mice in their “epigenetics” — biochemical markers on their DNA that indicate gene activity. This shows that a fundamentally different form of genetic reprogramming takes place during the Phicsi procedure.

During a press briefing in London, Dr Perry was happy to speculate about the implications. Unlike sperm and eggs, parthenogenotes are “mitotic cells” that divide like the body's other non-reproductive cells. His group is going on to investigate the possibility of adapting mitotic cells like those in skin to undergo a fertilisation procedure like Phicsi.

“Can embryos reprogramme other mitotic cells? Can other mitotic cells reprogramme sperm? Can other mitotic cells reprogramme other mitotic cells?” Dr Perry asked. If so, it may be eventually be possible to “mate” cells of two individuals in the lab without involving sperm or eggs.

“Will we be able to do that? I don't know,” he said. “But I think if it is ever possible one day in the distant future, people will look back and say this is where it started.”

Robin Lovell-Badge, an embryologist Crick Institute in London, said: “I'm not surprised that the authors are excited about this. I think it is a very interesting paper, and a technical tour de force.”

請根據你所讀到的文章內容，完成以下自測題目：

1.Which university's biologists have produced healthy offspring without fertilising an egg?

A.Harvard University

B.University of Oxford

C.Tsinghua University

D.Bath University

答案(1)

2.Which one of following is the experimental subject in the study?

A.rabbit

B.mouse

C.human

D.frog

答案(2)

3.Which of the following is not right for the study?

A.It may help us to understand more about how human life begins.

B.It may help us to understand what controls the viability of embryos.

C.The Bath University funded this work.

D.It challenges the dogma as we know.

答案(3)

4.What's the difference between experimental mice and the others?

A.epigenetics

B.appearance

C.propagation

D.nothing

答案(4)

* * *

(1)答案：D.Bath University

解釋：巴斯大學的科學家們在沒有讓卵子受精的情況下繁育出健康的后代，這一突破顛覆了兩個世紀以來的公認智慧。

(2)答案：B.mouse

解釋：生物學家們把精子注入一個名為單性繁殖胚胎的無活性胚胎，繁育出了老鼠。這種方法以根本上不同于卵子的方式使細胞分裂，更像是體內的其他細胞。

(3)答案：C.The Bath University funded this work.

解釋：這項研究的資助方是英國醫(yī)學研究理事會(UK Medical Research Council)。

(4)答案：A.epigenetics

解釋：盡管它們看起來沒什么不同而且也能繁育后代，但他們的“實驗胚胎學”完全不同于其他同類。