Scientists may have found a way to prevent the transfer of serious inherited mitochondrial diseases from mother to child. By shuttling DNA from an egg cell to a donor cell, the technique enabled the birth of four healthy Rhesus monkey males, researchers report online August 26 in Nature.
“We consider this a big achievement,” study coauthor Shoukhrat Mitalipov of the Oregon National Primate Research Center in Beaverton said in a news briefing August 25. “We believe that the technique can be applied very quickly to humans, and we believe it will work.”
Mitochondria, power-producing organelles in cells, carry their own DNA, distinct from the DNA held in cells’ nuclei. Healthy or otherwise, mitochondrial DNA is passed from mother to child. In recent years, researchers have identified more than 150 harmful mutations in mitochondrial DNA, some of which can cause serious and debilitating diseases (SN: 2/28/09, p. 20).