A first-of-its-kind primate has been born in a China lab. While there are great features to the creature, its eyes observably have a green shine while its fingertips have a yellow glow.
First-of-Its-Kind Lab-Born Chimera Monkey
The male chimera monkey resulted from an unexpected experiment that covered the use of pluripotent cells of two distinct fertilized eggs of one monkey species. These cells were used to create a real and living macaque with a long tail.
While this is not the first artificially formed living monkey produced through multiple fertilized egg fusion, this primate is considerably the most mixed, or chimeric, one.
In the world of science, a chimera refers to a single particular organism consisting of cells that derive from over two parents. For this particular primate case, the tissues and cells made from two different stem cell lines were clean in the heart, brain, liver, kidney, testes, gastrointestinal tract, and sperm-turning cells.
The scientists measured 26 various tissue types in the primate. It was then observed that the impact of the extra stem cells had a range of 21% to 92%, with the highest percentage observed in tissues of the brain.
Earlier studies have led to liveborn and terminated chimera monkey fetuses in the past. The offspring were found to contain low contributions of the donor cells, with impacts ranging from 0.1% to 4.5%.
Now, for this new study, the stats were blown off the water. The chimera monkey lived for only ten days, implying that chimera monkey health is still an ongoing issue that needs to be addressed.
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Chimeric Animal Study
Senior author and reproductive engineer Zhen Liu from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) explains that this goal is one that has been long-sought in the field. Liu adds that the work could enable them to come up with monkey models that are more precise for the study of neurological conditions and biomedicine studies.
Geneticist Jing Cao, the study's lead author, explains in a media conference that the scientific advance was basic as it serves as the first case that shows how non-human chimera primates are possible.
Because donor stem cells can be edited genetically, biomedical researchers may test outcomes of disease among future monkey models. Though this may vary depending on the research purpose, it is observed that the higher donor stem cell contribution on specific tissues, the higher the disease model accuracy will be.
Miguel Esteban, an immunologist from CAS and the Beijing Genomics Institute, explains that among sperm and egg cells, a chimerism percentage of just 10% can be useful.
The first actual chimeric monkeys were reported in 2012. However, their donor cells had a low contribution percentage of just 4%.
For this new chimeric monkey, when the pluripotent stem cells were injected by the research team into the monkey blastocyst embryos, the researchers ensured to use green fluorescent protein for labeling the donations. With this, any green-glowing cell or tissue in the offspring can be directly linked to the donated cells.
Only six live births took place. Interestingly, only one male displayed the stem cell tissue in various areas of its body. One aborted fetus also exhibited a degree of chimerism, though this specific fetus did not live until birth.
Cao and the team acknowledge that the process' general efficiency is quite low. Nevertheless, it is a good step forward. Liu explains that the research could help specialists to know more about the stem cell differentiation early stages among primates, which is not as well studied compared to their mouse counterparts.
Esteban notes that they have offered proof that monkey pluripotent stem cells have the capacity to differentiate in vivo into different monkey tissues, adding that the study adds to the understanding of primate pluripotent stem cells' development potential.
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