Stem cells from manlike mice have been successfully converted into cellphone containing two X chromosomes . These cells were then differentiated into testicle and fertilized with sperm , result in the birth of seven healthy baby mice . It ’s a landmark determination , and it was made potential thanks to an issue that ’s long been a headache for scientists attempting to culture stem turn mobile phone .

Stem prison cell enquiry has been creditworthy for some of the liberal biological breakthroughs in recent years , offer up hope for thetreatment of disease , tissue paper regeneration , and maybe evencomputers based on human brains . However , culturing stem cells for the distance of clip needed to perform such unbelievable experiment comes with its percentage of likely pit .

After a menstruation of fourth dimension , cultured bow cells can start to pick up genetic errors . An exercise of this isaneuploidy , which arises when chromosomes are wrongly deleted or duplicated . Aneuploidy can affect any of the chromosomes inside our cells;Down syndromeis famously cause by an extra copy of chromosome 21 . In this case , we ’re concerned in aneuploidy that specifically affect the sex chromosome .

In humans – and , significantly for this story , in mice too – biologic sex is determined by twosex chromosome . Biologically female cells have two written matter of the 10 chromosome ; biologically male cells have one X chromosome and one atomic number 39 chromosome .

In the new field of study , the scientists used XY stem electric cell get from male mice , which were change intopluripotentstem cells and cultured . As the mobile phone of course began to clean up erroneousness , a small subset ( about 6 percentage ) lose their Y chromosomes . As the squad continued to propagate these so - call “ XO ” cells , they began to see duplication of the remaining X chromosome , which they were also able to help on its manner with the use of a drug shout out reversine .

finally , the authors find themselves with a universe of XX cell . In other news , from the start culture of biologically manful cells , they now had a small culture of distaff cells . Since stalk cells have the potential to severalise into many different cellular telephone types , it was potential to induce the XX cadre down a path toward becoming operational eggs , which could then be fertilized .

Out of 630 fertilized embryo that the authors embed into a black eye uterus , around 1 percent – seven in total – develop into healthy shiner pup .

That might not sound like a great deal , and this downcast efficiency is highlight as one of several restriction of the protocol in an accompanying News and Views article by Drs Jonathan Bayerl and Diana Laird of the University of California , San Francisco , who did not take part in the research .

However , as a jumping - off point for further research , it ’s certainly a remarkable outcome . One day , this sort of technology could furnish choice for woman with infertility due to a consideration call Turner syndrome , which results in them having only one written matter of the X chromosome .

And speaking toNew Scientist , senior author Dr Katsuhiko Hayashi hint that this work could be a stepping - I. F. Stone towards same - sex manlike couple being able to have biological tyke of their own : “ What I can say is only about the technological side . I think in hypothesis it is possible . ”

It ’s not yet known if this proficiency would work in human stem cadre , and lots more inquiry is needed . If anything , as Bayerl and Laird guide out , these new finding show us how much we still do n’t bed about this burgeoning field of study : “ [ We ] have much to learn before we use civilised stem cells to make human eggs in a beauty . ”

Thestudyand accompanyingNews and Viewsarticle are both bring out in Nature .