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Scientists made mice with Y chromosomes female by deleting just 6 tiny molecules | Live Science (www.livescience.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Scientists discovered that removing specific molecules from developing mice can completely reverse their sex from male to female.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

So, we probably now have the technical ability to genetically engineer the sex of a mammal.

That's probably stretching it a bit far- more like, we're on the way to maybe be able to do that.

The best the researchers were able to do was revert the development of a male fetus back into a female fetus, but the mice still kept their XY chromosomes. What happens if they try to bond these micro-RNAs to XX-chromosome mice fetuses? How do you control which X chromosome the RNA attaches to, and what happens if some RNA attaches to one X chromosome in one cell, but to the other X chromosome in another cell? Maybe this process is only unidirectional - you can always choose to have a girl, but still have to rely on random chance to have a boy.

Also the article doesn't make it sound like they let the fetuses actually develop- what happens if an organism- let's call it an XY female, for clarity's sake- goes through puberty? Would that organism have genitals of a phenotypical female but grow the secondary sex characteristics of a male? Could an XY female be fertile? If so, would she have fertility issues if half her gametes have Y chromosomes? What would even happen if a Y chromosome egg was attempted to be fertilized by a sperm?

This is absolutely fascinating work, but we're probably not at the "designer baby" stage quite yet.

edit: A quick look at Quora seems to indicate that a YY fertilized egg would not be viable.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

No we actually do. Eliminating the sry expression caused a sex organ reversal in pigs and mice.