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Originally Posted by AJLove
Yes I wanted to know if you can include the gene of two males to fertilize the egg.
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While the following deals with formation of an embryo from two males or two females, it may also apply to your question. It seems that abnormalities ensue from not having the purely male-female mixing in reproduction.
From
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives...3843.Ge.r.html
Quote:
Simplistically, a diploid (2n) embryo can be formed by artificial joining of any two haploid (n) gamete nuclei of the same species. However, there are more variables to this equation. There is a phenomenon called parental imprinting. Imprinting is a mechanism by which some genes are preferentially silenced in males and in females. The genes that are silenced in male gametes are active in female gametes and vice-versa. Thus, dividing the genes in the embryo as “mom’s” and “dad’s”. This mechanism was first found in insects and now has been shown to happen in mammals as well, including humans. As a consequence of imprinting, the embryo needs both maternal AND paternal genomes to develop properly. For instance, consider a gene X, which is inactivated in the female gamete. An embryo consisting of a double copy of maternal genes would lack expression of gene X. Conversely, a normal embryo with a copy of X from the mother (which is inactivated), can still express X from his paternal-derived genes.
Your question, however, was addressed directly by Barton, Surani and Norris (Nature 1984 Sep 27-Oct 3; 311(5984): 374-6) who made mouse embryos that had double copy of maternal genes or of paternal genes. Neither the paternal-only nor the maternal-only embryos developed normally. The embryos that only had maternal genes were almost normal-sized, but the extraembryonic tissue tissue (structures that nourish the embryo, such as the placenta) was underdeveloped. On the other hand, the embryos that only had paternal genes were puny, but the extraembryonic were almost normal.
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That being said, it is still not a definitive answer, since you are asking about first combining two sets of male genes in a single sperm - right?
This would need to occur before fertilization of the egg becasue, if I remember correctly, there is a mechanism in mammals to that causes an egg fertilized by two sperm to fail early in the development process.