Genetically Engineered Mice With Down’s Syndrome
One of my most popular posts is about a mother whose DNA did not match her children’s. She turned out to be a chimera - carrying two different genomes. In Greek Mythology, Chimera was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna; a fire-breathing she-monster with a lion’s head and a goat’s body and a serpent’s tail. Perhaps it’s this image of chimeras that both fascinates and repels people.
With recent news of the successful transplantation of whole human chromosomes into mice, some critics are saying that scientists have violated the boundary between human and animals. These genetically engineered mice carry a copy of human chromosome 21 which consists of approximately 250 genes. An extra copy of chromosome 21 in humans causes Down’s syndrome.
Having a mouse model in which to study the genetics of Down’s syndrome would be an invaluable way to understand which specific genes increase the risk of medical conditions which are prevalent among people with Down’s syndrome: impaired brain development, heart defects, behavioural abnormalities, Alzheimer’s disease and leukaemia.
Peter Scambler, a molecular geneticist at the Institute of Child Health in London, said:
This is a technical tour de force. It’s difficult to envisage how one could otherwise tackle something as complex as Down’s syndrome, because we can’t go around creating human embryos with the condition.
Each year in the United States, approximately one in every 800 to 1,000 newborns is born with Down’s syndrome (~5,000 children). Down’s syndrome affects approximately 350,000 Americans.
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POSTED IN: Genetics of Disease
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