SRF2016 SYMPOSIA Symposium 1: New technologies in reproductive science (3 abstracts)
Can reproductive technologies prevent transmission of mitochondrial DNA disease?
Louise Hyslop 1, , Lyndsey Craven 1, , Jessica Richardson 1, , Yuko Takeda 1, , Doug Turnbull 1, & Mary Herbert 1,
1Wellcome Trust Centre for Mitochondrial Research, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK; 2Institute of Genetic Medicine, Biomedicine West Wing, Centre for Life, Times Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK; 3Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, The Medical School, Framlington Place, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations are maternally inherited and are associated with a broad range of debilitating and fatal diseases. Reproductive technologies designed to uncouple the inheritance of mtDNA from nuclear DNA may enable affected women to have a genetically related child with a greatly reduced risk of mtDNA disease. To this end, we have performed preclinical studies on pronuclear transplantation (PNT). Surprisingly, techniques used in proof of concept studies involving abnormally fertilized human zygotes were not well tolerated when applied to those that undergo normal fertilisation. We have therefore developed an alternative approach based on transplanting pronuclei shortly after completion of meiosis rather than shortly before the first mitotic division. The modified procedure, known as early PNT (ePNT), promotes efficient development to the blastocyst stage with no detectable effect on aneuploidy or gene expression. Following further optimisation, mtDNA carryover was reduced to <2% in the majority (79%) of PNT blastocysts. However, we found that 1/5 hESC lines derived from PNT blastocysts showed a marked increase in heteroplasmy despite relatively low (4%) starting levels. While the relevance of this to development in vivo is unclear, the finding underscores the importance of reducing mtDNA carryover to the lowest possible levels. We propose that the new ePNT procedure has the potential to give rise to normal pregnancies with a reduced risk of mtDNA disease, but may need further modification to eliminate disease in all cases.
Volume 3
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Reproduction Abstracts
ISSN 2052-1472 (online)
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