SCIENTISTS PRODUCE ANIMAL EGGS IN THE LABORATORY

A joint venture research between Connecticut University and the Clinic and Research Center in Human Reproduction Roger Abdelmassih to produce animal artificial eggs will, maybe in the future, make it possible for women who possess no eggs or had a premature menopause to have a baby. Presently, if those women want to conceive, they depend on egg donation.

Initiated ten months ago, the study is being developed in rats and reached promising results: of 80 attempts to produce laboratory eggs, about 50% were well succeeded. This is the first time one obtains such expressive results in this research line. The analysis of the gametes obtained proved them to be morphologically perfect.

Recently the specialists began to analyze chromosomes in the material produced. Preliminary analyses also indicate that they are normal from a genetic point of view. If this tendency is confirmed, the eggs will be fertilized and their embyological development checked.

In order to obtain artificial eggs, scientists remove the egg nucleus of a donator female rat, preserving the cytoplasm. Following, cells containing 46 chromosome pairs from another female rat were injected in the cytoplasm containing no nucleus, creating a new nucleus, but having 46 chromosome pairs. By electric stimulation, this nucleus was split in two, resulting in a nucleus containing 23c chromosomal pairs – the normal number for an egg.