Scientists discovered that removing specific molecules from developing mice can completely reverse their sex from male to female.
Scientists discovered that removing specific molecules from developing mice can completely reverse their sex from male to female.
That’s probably stretching it a bit far- more like, we’re on the way to maybe be able to do that.
The best the researchers were able to do was revert the development of a male fetus back into a female fetus, but the mice still kept their XY chromosomes. What happens if they try to bond these micro-RNAs to XX-chromosome mice fetuses? How do you control which X chromosome the RNA attaches to, and what happens if some RNA attaches to one X chromosome in one cell, but to the other X chromosome in another cell? Maybe this process is only unidirectional - you can always choose to have a girl, but still have to rely on random chance to have a boy.
Also the article doesn’t make it sound like they let the fetuses actually develop- what happens if an organism- let’s call it an XY female, for clarity’s sake- goes through puberty? Would that organism have genitals of a phenotypical female but grow the secondary sex characteristics of a male? Could an XY female be fertile? If so, would she have fertility issues if half her gametes have Y chromosomes? What would even happen if a Y chromosome egg was attempted to be fertilized by a sperm?
This is absolutely fascinating work, but we’re probably not at the “designer baby” stage quite yet.
edit: A quick look at Quora seems to indicate that a YY fertilized egg would not be viable.
No we actually do. Eliminating the sry expression caused a sex organ reversal in pigs and mice.