英国《自然》杂志网站8日报告说，剑桥大学科学家在世界上首次培育出了哺乳动物的单倍体胚胎干细胞，这项成果将会极大推动基因研究。
单倍体胚胎干细胞概念图
包括人在内的哺乳动物都是双倍体，也就是细胞中有两套染色体，一套来自父方，一套来自母方。然而，双倍体对于基因研究来说，是个巨大困难，因为科学家很难确定动物的某一性状是哪一套染色体决定的。
此次，剑桥大学科学家利用实验鼠的卵细胞，首次成功培育出了哺乳动物的单倍体胚胎干细胞。
参与这一研究的科学家安东•伍兹说，胚胎干细胞能够分化成各种组织和器官，因此这项成果意味着，科学家有可能可以准确跟踪某一基因对动物性状的长期作用，这将有力提高基因研究的准确性。
生物探索推荐英文摘要
Most animals are diploid, but haploid-only and male-haploid (such as honeybee and ant) species have been described1. The diploid genomes of complex organisms limit genetic approaches in biomedical model species such as mice. To overcome this problem, experimental induction of haploidy has been used in fish2, 3. Haploid development in zebrafish has been applied for genetic screening2. Recently, haploid pluripotent cell lines from medaka fish (Oryzias latipes) have also been established3. In contrast, haploidy seems less compatible with development in mammals4, 5. Although haploid cells have been observed in egg cylinder stage parthenogenetic mouse embryos6, most cells in surviving embryos become diploid. Here we describe haploid mouse embryonic stem cells and show their application in forward genetic screening.
