Experimenting with Double DNA Cells: Has Anyone Tried It?

[munky99999]

Has anyone experimented with this? Take 2 stem cells. Take the DNA portion out of the one cell and place it inside the second cell. using the same method that the cloning stuff does it.

Or would this method basically just cause mitosis to separate the cells anyway. or would it just kill the cell?

has anyone tried to make a quad-helix?

 

[Ouabache]

There have been human cellular experiments that yielded viable tetrapoid (4N) cells. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/309/5732/240
In that ref of Science, the researchers had fused somatic fibroblast cells with embyonic stem cells to form tetraploid hybrid cells. These cells did grow and remain viable. I don't know of any experiments where they tried to fuse two stem cells. I suspect it would work though.

 

[jim mcnamara]

DNA is packaged in little blobs called chromosomes.

An organism that has two sets of each chromosome (the norm for most animals) is diploid, written 2N. Triploid is 3N, tetraploid 4N.

There are plant species, like switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), that are found with varying numbers of "ploids" 4N, 6N, etc. Whether P. virgatum is really one species or just a completely undiscernable mass of separate species is not clear. A lot of fern species are VERY polyploid - "poly" means many.

What you are describing would create a 4N human. This kind of thing has been done with other animal species, but they normally live only for a short time, then develop problems and die. I'm guessing that a human tetraploid embryo would only last for a few days.

 

[Ouabache]

Thanks Jim for adding some background information about genetic nomenclature.

I notice the reference I gave for Science is no longer working..
Here is an excerpt of another reference that cites the same paper.

In the studies published in Science, the researchers combined human fibroblast cells with human embryonic stem cells in the presence of a detergent-like substance that caused the two cell types to fuse. The researchers demonstrated that they had achieved fusion of the two cell types by searching the fused cells for two distinctive genetic markers present in the somatic fibroblast and stem cells. The researchers were also able to further confirm that fusion occurred by studying the chromosomal makeup of the fused cells. Their analyses showed that the hybrid cells were "tetraploid" - meaning they contained the combined chromosomes of both the somatic cells and the embryonic stem cells.

One of the key findings from the study was that the fusion cells have the characteristics of human embryonic stem cells. "Our assays showed that the hybrid cells, unlike adult cells, showed the development potential of embryonic stem cells," said Eggan. "We found they could be induced to mature into nerve cells, hair follicles, muscle cells and gut endoderm cells. And, since these cell types are derived from three different parts of the embryo, this really demonstrated the ability of these cells to give rise to a variety of different cell types."

They were not trying to create a tetraploid human, just to see if the embryonic stem cell genome would influence a specialized cell when hybridized resulting in a 4N nucleus, and induce it to mature into a different specialized cell. They accomplished that result and cells remained viable.

 

[nipwoni]

Polyploidy is actually very common in the plant kingdom. According to my genetics teacher, there are more polyploid plants than diploid ones. Plants with even ploidy numbers (4N, 6N, 8N etc.) are usually perfectly healthy and are often more vigorous and have larger fruits and flowers. Because of this, many plants grown as crops are polyploid, such as wheat (6N), potato (4N), and strawberry (8N). It's also a common way for new species to arise, because a plant with doubled chromosome number instantly becomes (almost) genetically isolated from its diploid ancestors.