overt@antony (Christian Overton) (05/02/91)
In article <153726@pyramid.pyramid.com>, lstowell@pyrnova (Lon Stowell) writes: > > Aren't rabbits parthenogenetic? Maybe that's what happened. > Also buffalo and cattle.... > There are no parthenogenetic mammals. Current research in nuclear transplantation strongly supports a manditory contribution of the male and female pronuclei for successful development --- that is, while the male and female genetic contribution are equivalent the pronuclei are functionally distinct, and one from each sex is required. Two hypotheses to explain these results are that during gametogenesis in males and females 1) the DNA is differentially modified (for example, by methylation at CGs) or 2) the chromatin is differentially and stably modified. BTW, these experiments also demonstrated that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to clone mammals from somatic cells as was done in amphibians by Gurdon. Chris -- +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | G. Christian Overton, Ph.D. || Telephone: (215) 648-2420 | | Center for Advanced Information Technology|| Internet: overt@prc.unisys.com | | Unisys || FAX: (215) 648-2288 |