Just ahead of Mother's Day, scientists have found a way to cut dads out of the picture, at least among rodents: They have produced mice with two genetic moms - and no father.
It is the first time the feat has been accomplished in mammals.
Scientists said the technique cannot be used on people, for reasons both technical and ethical. In fact, one of the mouse mothers was a mutant newborn, whose DNA had been altered to make it act like a male's contribution to an embryo.
But the new work sheds light on why people, mice and other mammals normally need a male's DNA for reproduction, and some experts say it also has implications for the idea of using stem cells to treat disease.
Experts said ethical concerns and current technology would pose barriers to duplicating the technique in people. For one thing, scientists do not know how to create the precise DNA mutation in humans. Experts also noted that it took hundreds of eggs to produce just two mice and that the health risks are unknown.
However, the study provides new evidence for the standard explanation for why mammals normally need a male's DNA.
What's more, the scientists took this mutated DNA from the egg cells of newborns, because at such a young age the DNA has not yet taken on the full female imprinting seen in mature eggs.
That DNA was combined with genes from ordinary female mice to make reconstructed eggs. Only two of 457 such eggs produced living mice.
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The Associated Press
