A five-month-old boy is the first baby to be born using a new technique that incorporates DNA from three parents, New Scientist reveals, 27 September 2016.
Abstract
Five MII oocytes with birefringent spindles were subjected to meiotic SNT. The 5 oocytes were successfully reconstituted and fertilized normally by ICSI. Four out of 5 fertilized oocytes developed into blastocysts. PGS showed that one blastocyst was euploid (46XY), while 3 embryos were aneuploid. The average transmission rate of maternal mtDNA in the biopsied euploid blastocyst was 5.10 ± 1.11% and the heteroplasmy level for 8993T>G was 5.73%. Transfer of the euploid embryo resulted in an uneventful pregnancy with delivery of a healthy boy at 37 weeks of gestation. The average level of transmitted mother’s mtDNA in several neonatal tissues including buccal epithelium, hair follicles, circumcised foreskin, urine precipitate, placenta, amnion, umbilical blood, and umbilical cord was less than 1.60 ± 0.92%.
First live birth using human oocytes reconstituted by spindle nuclear transfer for mitochondrial DNA mutation causing Leigh syndrome, Fertility and Sterility, S0015-0282(16)62670-5, October 2016.
Human oocytes reconstituted by SNT are capable of producing a healthy live birth. SNT may provide a novel treatment option in minimizing pathogenic mtDNA transmission from mothers to their babies.