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Babies made using three people's DNA are born free of mitochondrial disease
- foxyv 1y agoIn vivo zygote mitochonrial transplantation. Neat! This is going to add an interesting exception to matrilineal DNA testing in the future. Another thought, what about three parent households engaging in IVF? Will this be an option to have 3 biological parents regardless of disease? How will we keep records properly? What are the legal consequences? Do mitochondrial parents need to pay child support?
- thaumasiotes 1y ago> In vivo zygote mitochonrial transplantation. Neat! Absolutely not. This is in vitro: >> The eggs from both the mother and the donor are fertilised in the lab with the dad's sperm. In vivo would make no sense.
- Out_of_Characte 1y ago>In vivo would make no sense. It would certainly be one of the more stranger ways to explain the birds and the bees
- foxyv 1y agoWoops, thanks for the correction.
- perilunar 1y agoThe amount of mitochondrial DNA is tiny though (~0.1%, according to the article), and not particularly unique to any individual, since it is passed down lately unchanged apart from the occasional mutation. There's no point having 3 biological parents unless there's a bad mutation in the mother's mitochondrial DNA.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- spauldo 1y agoI'm not sure there's any point to it. I know a couple poly families and my own situation isn't far off. The kids have a similar relationship with their parents as two-parent kids do. What DNA they happen to have doesn't matter, outside the occasional teenage outburst.
- foxyv 1y agoThat is the case in many poly families, and I feel pretty much the same, however some people actually care about stuff like DNA and lineage. Having that as an option for some folks would be pretty cool. For instance, in cases where one person is infertile, they can still donate mitochondria.
- spauldo 1y agoI agree there are plenty of people who feel that way. I just question if healthcare providers will go along with it. Cases like this one where it's medically necessary are one thing, but "hey, Martha wants to be parent #3" is a different matter.
- wbl 1y agoWe already crossed this with donor eggs and surrogacy. As for multiparent households i am aware of recent developments and will not say more.
- oc1 1y agoThis would be awesome for so many households. We should stop acting like two biological parents is the only way to go.
- JLemay 1y agoThis is such an incredible breakthrough and a huge win for science and families alike, however its sad that despite decades of work there is still no cure for mitochondrial disease. But the chance to preventing it being passed on is still such a major improvement. Also it’s sad that only the uk is capable of doing this atm bc it was the first country in the world to introduce laws to allow their creation after a vote in Parliament in 2015, while other countries were debating that it would open the doors to genetically-modified "designer" babies
- im3w1l 1y agoCells can exchange mitochondria so in theory it might be possible to flood the body with healthy mitochondria and get them to slowly take over.
- yorwba 1y agoI would expect that to activate the immune system. "the unique components of mitochondria, when exposed, reveal their prokaryotic history and are recognized as foreign by innate immune receptors triggering an inflammatory response." https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6218307/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6218307/ Maybe if you suppress the immune system, introduce working mitochondria, and then stop taking the immunosuppressants, any mitochondria that are still outside cells get cleaned up and the ones that got absorbed are shielded and can do their job.
- inglor_cz 1y agoMaybe we can find some way to deliver mitochondria right into the cells.
- dr_dshiv 1y agoMitochondrial health is definitely going to be a big theme in the coming years.
- type0 1y ago> it might be possible to flood the body with healthy mitochondria and get them to slowly take over it's not possible, these are organelles that are too big to be taken up by your cells, unless you can magically teleport them somehow to each cell
- le-mark 1y agoClever. So they fertilize an egg from the mother and another egg from a donor with the fathers sperm. Then they yank out the donor/father “pro nuclei” and replace it with the pro nuclei from mother/father egg. Thus the child ends up with the donor’s mitochondria.
- FollowingTheDao 1y agoHuge win for science ...big loss for evolution. I am by no means a callous person, in fact, my therapist tells me I have a problem with too much empathy, and in no way do I wish parents to loose their children so young. But what I am also not is a eugenicist, which is what this is, eugenics. "Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population." Now remember, first they are only preventing the chance of a baby being born with mitochondrial disease. But more importantly, these mitochondrial diseases are still evident in the human population because there is some survival advantage. This is what happens with sickle cell disease [1]. The sacrifices these babies make, dying so young, is a sacrifice for the survival of a genetic population. In the case of mitochondrial diseases, this favors the survival of female babies over male babies, or even the benefit of higher amounts of oxidative stess in the mother to fight off infection. So by this method, even the female baby will be born without the Mitochondrial mutation. What will this mean for her? https://www.vanderbilt.edu/evolution/mitochondrial-dna-evolution-new-study-reveals-how-selfish-mtdna-evolve-and-thrive/ https://www.vanderbilt.edu/evolution/mitochondrial-dna-evolu... "Accordingly, their model revealed that some mutations confer a net replicative advantage over unmutated (wildtype) mtDNA, causing the mutant mtDNA to proliferate within individual organisms." We know so little and we are acting like we know everything. Humanity needs to stop thinking we are gods and accept our fates. Eugenicists thought they knew what the best genes were to survive, and this is no different. [1] https://globalhealthnow.org/2024-06/how-sickle-cell-disease-and-malaria-defined-evolution https://globalhealthnow.org/2024-06/how-sickle-cell-disease-...
- hobs 1y agoGenerally the reason we think of Eugenicists as "bad guys" is because they've been characterized by being happy to sterilize or kill people to prevent their "subhuman genes" from being passed down to the next generations. This is different, another step in the erasure of genes that harm humans. This is not a genocide. It seems like your argument boils down to we should continue to have horrible suffering and early death because diversity of DNA is good and we shouldn't edit out potentially helpful mutations (that also cause horrible suffering) - if we can beat malaria, why would we need sickle cell?
- 999900000999 1y agoWouldn't it be significantly easier to just use the donor's egg here ? Or adopt? This feels a bit narcissistic. If you and your partner determine you have genetic traits you'd rather not have, you have the option of not having biological children. This just feels like it's going to open Pandora's box. You and your partner are short and near sighted, edit in some height and vision. You're partner has ethnic traits they don't want to pass on ? Just edit those out. This feels like something that's going to start well intentioned, but snowball into very strange outcomes. God forbid this ever comes to America's profit driven health system. The rich would have the option to edit in "better" traits. Gattica here we come
- gedy 1y agoI doubt problems would be unique to America, many parts Asia are more aggressive with selective births and distorting sex ratios already, I suspect this will be readily embraced and with the much larger populations will be more an impact.
- HPsquared 1y agoI think Fisher's Principle will assert itself in those cases where the balance is disturbed currently. People will see how "excess males" don't have as good outcomes as "scarce females".
- morkalork 1y agoIt's definitely not unique to America, in fact America is in some ways only catching up to other countries. What is considered legal and ethical in say Mexico or Brazil if you have money is a lot looser than in the USA. IVF clinics happily advertise that they let you do sex selection.
- laurent_du 1y agoWhy is any of that a bad thing?
- HPsquared 1y agoMate selection is, consciously or otherwise, based on these considerations already.
- kenjackson 1y agoIn the US would this be considered abortion by pro-life activists?
- blargthorwars 1y agoI'm prolife. Perhaps. You're destroying one human in this process. Some of us are a bit more comfortable with IVF-like processes because the intent is to foster human life rather than take it, just as it's acceptable to cause an abortion in the process of saving a mother.
- hylaride 1y ago> Some of us are a bit more comfortable with IVF-like processes because the intent is to foster human life rather than take it, just as it's acceptable to cause an abortion in the process of saving a mother. But that (fostering human life) is also not a settled debate if the laws in some states are any indication. But debate is hard in jurisdictions where minority opinion can hold sway (like in Florida where a referendum hit 57% for enshrining a right to abortion). While I'm resolutely pro-choice and don't consider a fertilized cell to be "human", (before I continue I want to be clear, I 100% support these types of procedures in the article) there is eventually going to be a grey area where debate needs to happen before we hit Gattaca-style dystopian editing. PS This is not meant to argue against your view per se, which I disagree with but respect. I mean to illustrate how very quickly this gets messy and rational debate flies out the window. But that's the same with anything political in today's climate... :-/
- N1ckFG 1y agoAfaik it's a misconception that MRT necessarily involves the destruction of an embryo. The spindle transfer method transplants the mother's egg's DNA into the donor's egg before fertilization, so only one embryo is ever created. The UK trials exclusively used the older pronuclear transfer method, where two embryos are created and the donor's is destroyed, because the journey to full regulatory approval took about a decade and embryos are currently safer to freeze and thaw than eggs. In a hypothetical scenario where MRT became as widely available as IVF, this would not need to be the case for new patients.
- hndevnufties 1y ago[flagged]
- MrDrDr 1y agoI think it would be better to describe this as an ‘organelle’ transplant as it would be easier for people to understand and discuss. Yes there is a donor (egg) and yes the new child will pass on the mitochondria to her children. But calling it a 3 person baby is unhelpful and misleading as IMO mitochondria DNA is of a different category to chromosomal DNA.
- jungturk 1y agoDNA can migrate between the nucleus and the mitochondria (and vice versa) so its not entirely black & white.
- gus_massa 1y agoI've read about migration from mitochondria to nucleus, but I don't remember in the other direction. Anyway, it's a very slow procces, IIRC like millions of years. We can ignore it in the human escale. Also, both DNA use a sligtly different genetic code. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mitochondrial_genetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mitochondrial_genetics > For most organisms the "stop codons" are "UAA", "UAG", and "UGA". In vertebrate mitochondria "AGA" and "AGG" are also stop codons, but not "UGA", which codes for tryptophan instead. "AUA" codes for isoleucine in most organisms but for methionine in vertebrate mitochondrial mRNA. So it's not as easy as cut&paste.
- gus_massa 1y agoIt's inheritable so it's more than a liver transplant. I agree that DNA in mitochondria is much smaller than DNA in the nucleus. But in each person there are many mitochondria and they nay have slightly different DNA. And the DNA in mitochondria has a different variation than the DNA in the nucleus. So it's difficult to weight both. Can we say 2.1 parents? A long time ago I read that most binary classifications are not completely binaries, it's just that 2 options cover almost all the cases. (Are virus alive?) I guess integer classifications also have hidden corner cases. I also remember from a biology book that in a lab they mixed two blastula(?) of small lizards(?) or something like that. They had different skin color and the baby had patches of both colors. Does that count as 2 or 4 parents?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- SoftTalker 1y agoThis will run into objections from those who believe that life begins at conception. I can imagine this procedure being illegal in many jurisdictions.
- sigmoid10 1y agoThis procedure is already banned in the US, despite the fact that it was pioneered in New York.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- tripplyons 1y agoCouldn't patients have the procedure performed elsewhere as medical tourists? I don't see a viable way to prevent it.
- serial_dev 1y agoYes, that’s my understanding as well. Those who can afford it, can travel to a different country and try. But I assume it’s so expensive that only a select few can go through this process.
- SoftTalker 1y agoSome states have tried to make it illegal to travel to another state to have a banned procedure such as an elective abortion. I don't know how that has held up in court in practice.
- tripplyons 1y agoThe US constitution protects rights to interstate travel, but I'm not sure what the courts will do.
- mcintyre1994 1y ago
- w10-1 1y agoSo mother and father contribute the nucleus, and donor egg has everything else-- which is a lot more than mitochondria. DNA required by mitochondria are both in the mitochondria and in the nucleus. This seems to show there is no co-evolution of the two; or the genetic distance of the donor might matter. Still TBD whether other problems arise. If they do, I wonder if the affected person has any ability to get medical records of the other subjects, to compare diagnoses or treatments, notwithstanding privacy protections.
- throwawaymaths 1y ago> DNA required by mitochondria DNA that codes for proteins that are required by the mitochondria... The DNA in the nucleus itself does not make its way to the mitochondria. > This seems to show there is no co-evolution of the two There is plenty of co-evolution between the two. But the idea that the genetic distance between donors doesn't matter is pretty substantiated by the fact that people of two races can have children.
- sigmoid10 1y ago>people of two races In modern science, the idea that humans can be separated into "races" genetically is completely debunked. All humans are members of the genus Homo and more specific the species H. sapiens. Two people of different skin color may well be genetically more similar than two people of what you would call the same "race."
- throwawaymaths 1y agostop. this is harmful. if you think someone of african descent has the same risk of sickle cell as someone of south asian descent and ignore a diagnosis based on that assessment you might be committing medical malpractice.
- sigmoid10 1y agoYou seriously need to open a history book to get some perspective on what is actually harmful with this agenda. As for the science, maybe check out wikipedia on human genetics [1]. You'll find tons of further sources there. >The lack of discontinuities in genetic distances between human populations, absence of discrete branches in the human species, and striking homogeneity of human beings globally, imply that there is no scientific basis for inferring races or subspecies in humans, and for most traits, there is much more variation within populations than between them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_variation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_variation
- hndevnufties 1y ago[dead]
- amriksohata 1y ago[flagged]
- dang 1y ago"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: we unbanned you because you promised you wouldn't do this kind of thing, and your account seems to have reverted to the earlier pattern. I'm not just talking about the current comment—I mean the pattern of using HN primarily to comment on political/national/religious/ideological topics. If you would please fix this so we don't have to ban you again, that would be good. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35505325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35505325
- paxcoder 1y agoBut this is fine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44619241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44619241
- dang 1y agoOf course it's not fine. If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=likeliest%20explanation%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=commente https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- amriksohata 1y agoim happy to stop posting about this topic, but literally every post on this site is somewhat political.
- throwaway106382 1y agoWho has to pay child support?
- eddie_catflap 1y agoMy son Oliver was born with mitochondrial disease and was killed by conditions associated with it at the age of 19. Some of the people mentioned in the report here were involved in his diagnosis and care. His life deteriorated from that of a normal, fun loving intelligent kid to an isolated bed-bound disabled teenager, fed by total parenteral nutrition and suffering a variety of awful complications. His eventual passing was cruel and brutal. I'm not sure we will ever get over it as a family. This treatment does now at least offer me a glimmer of grandchildren (my daughter having decided she would not risk children of her own until now). It's a remarkable achievement.
- jayski 1y agoI'm very sorry that happened to your son, and that you and your family had to endure it.
- whamlastxmas 1y agoWanted to share same sentiment. Thanks to gp for sharing.
- cheema33 1y agoAs a parent of teenagers it pained my heart to even read this. I cannot fathom what it is like to endure it and live with it after the fact. I am very sorry for what you experienced and what Oliver experienced.
- rendall 1y agoMy deepest condolences.
- BobbyTables2 1y ago[flagged]
- 123yawaworht456 1y ago[flagged]
- dang 1y agoPlease don't post flamewar comments. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 1y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44615758 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44615758.
- codedokode 1y agoIf most diseases are caused by errors in DNA, cannot we make mandatory DNA screening, detect such errors, and warn potential parents not to make children? Eventually this could lead to these diseases simply disappearing, and studying invalid DNA sequences seems to be much cheaper than researching the treatment for the disease.
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoThe mapping from DNA to health outcome is unbelievably chaotic/high-cardinality, then mixed in with various environmental/social/cultural factors that don’t show up in DNA at all. Drugs are in fact how we come to understand this chain of causality, piece by piece. So yeah, what you describe is obviously the dream (hand waving through some ethical considerations) but we just don’t know anywhere close to enough about the biology.
- unnamed76ri 1y agoI guess you’ve never met teenagers.
- justinc8687 1y agoThis might be a silly question: I understand the mitochondria from the mother's egg is unusable due to disease. Why do they need a 3rd person to provide one? Is there a reason they could take one from a father's cell?
- opello 1y agoI assume it's because it would be hard to filter out the mitochondria from the egg and easier to swap the much larger nucleus.
- jijijijij 1y ago> Mitochondria in human sperm contain no or very little DNA because mtDNA is degraded while sperm cells are maturing, hence they typically do not contribute any genetic material to their offspring. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperm So the sperm’s mitochondria are degraded, and I guess, you don’t want somatic cell components for various reasons.
- Perenti 1y agoI believe the simple answer (vs complicated truth) is that the donor cell, a fertilized egg, is in a state accepting a not-quite-formed nucleus. There are no male cells that can get into that state AFAIK, possibly excepting pluripotent stem cells that are somehow convinced to undergo ovogenesis. The truth is of course much more complicated than my limited understanding.
- Sammi 1y agoYou only inherit the mitochondria from your mother. The sperm don't contribute mitochondria, they are all in the egg.
- ratmeadow 1y agoFascinating that you can replace the nucleus of a cell and it keeps working fine, given cells are so complex... I wonder what (if any) setup/precautions are required in the cell biology to make it work. And I wonder if there are genetic conditions in which it can't work (e.g. some sort of mismatch between genes and what's already present in the donor cell)?
- holografix 1y agoIm a father and can maybe understand 0.1% of what this would feel like. I’m so sorry for what you and your family went through.
- achillesheels 1y agoI mean click-bait par excellence. No shit it would come from0.1% of someone else. Give me something like three headed baby, you know that enquirer stuff, just class it up. Theres like 10,000 research articles published every year, there’s gotta be some damn interesting speck in this business.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- alex-moon 1y agoI live in Newcastle and it's great to see Newcastle Uni in the news. Bobby McFarland is an international authority on paediatric neurology and of course mitochondrial medicine - he is also a truly lovely guy and intimidatingly smart. Everyone talks about Great Ormond Street but the paediatrics stuff being done at GNCH is world class.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]