X-Message-Number: 28309
From: 
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 15:33:07 EDT
Subject: Re: Freezing Pig embryos

Dr.  Prather's team overcame the obstacles to freezing swine embryos by first 
 
removing lipids from unfertilized eggs before fertilizing them with muscle  
cells from a male pig containing modified genetic material. The resulting  
embryos were then frozen at the blastocyst  stage.



Huh?  This sounds more like cloning. An egg contains one set of genes  and is 
fertilized by a sperm, also with one set, giving the fertilized egg two  
sets, as required.  But a muscle cell would contain two sets itself, so if  it 
"fertilized" a regular egg the egg would have three sets of genes, which does  

not work. In cloning the egg's nucleus with its one set is removed and replaced
by a normal nucleus from a regular cell with two sets, giving the egg the two 
 sets it needs.  So -- what did they do here?


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