Chimera (genetics)

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For other uses of the term chimera, see the chimera (disambiguation).

In zoology, a chimera is an animal that has two or more different populations of genetically distinct cells that originated in different zygotes; if the different cells emerged from the same zygote, it is called a mosaicism.

Chimeras are formed from four parent cells (two fertilized eggs or early embryos fuse together) or from three parent cells (a fertilized egg is fused with an unfertilized egg or a fertilized egg is fused with an extra sperm). Each population of cells keeps its own character and the resulting animal is a mixture of mis-matched parts. An analogy is two jigsaw puzzles cut using an identical cutter, but with different pictures. A single puzzle can be made out of the mis-matched parts, but the completed puzzle will show parts of both different pictures.

This condition is either acquired through the infusion of allogeneic hematopoietic cells during transplantation or transfusion or it is inherited. In fraternal twins, chimerism occurs by means of blood-vessel anastomoses. The likelihood of a child being a chimera is increased if the child is created via in vitro fertilization. Chimeras can often breed, but the fertility and type of offspring depends on which cell line gave rise to the ovaries or testes.

Chimeras were named after the mythological creature Chimera.

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[edit] Tetragametic chimerism

Tetragametic chimerism is a less common cause of congenital chimerism. It occurs through the fertilization of two ova by two sperm, followed by the fusion of the zygotes and the development of an organism with intermingled cell lines. This happens at a very early stage of development, such as that of the blastocyst. Such an organism is called a tetragametic chimera as it is formed from four gametes — two eggs and two sperm. Put another way, the chimera is formed from the merger of two fraternal twins in a very early (zygote or blastocyst) phase. As such, they can be male, female, or hermaphroditic.

As the organism develops, the resulting chimera can come to possess organs that have different sets of chromosomes. For example, the chimera may have a liver composed of cells with one set of chromosomes and have a kidney composed of cells with a second set of chromosomes. This has occurred in humans, and at one time was thought to be extremely rare, though more recent evidence suggests that it is not as rare as previously thought. Most will go through life without realising they are chimeras. The difference in genotypes may be minute, or completely undetectable (eg: having a hitchhiker thumb and a straight thumb, eyes of slightly different colors, differential hair growth on opposite sides of the body, etc).

Affected persons are identified by the finding of two populations of red cells or, if the zygotes are of opposite sex, ambiguous genitalia and hermaphroditism alone or in combination; such persons sometimes also have patchy skin, hair, or eye pigmentation (heterochromia). If the blastocysts are of the same sex, it can only be detected through DNA testing, although this is a rare procedure. If the blastocysts are of opposite sex, genitals of both sexes are formed, either ovary and testis, or combined ovotestes, in one rare form of intersexuality, a condition previously known as true hermaphroditism. As of 2003, there were about 30-40 human cases in the literature, according to New Scientist.[1] Since hermaphroditic chimeras would be expected to be half of all chimeras, with purely male and purely female chimeras being one-quarter each, this would suggest that the condition is not particularly common.

Natural chimeras are almost never detected unless the offspring has abnormalities such as male/female or hermaphrodite characteristics or skin discoloring. The most noticeable are some male tortoiseshell cats or animals with ambiguous sex organs or behavioural abnormalities such as confused gender behaviour (where female cells made the brain but male cells made the genitals or vice versa). Recent studies of tortoiseshell male cats and unusually coloured tortoiseshell-like cats suggest that natural chimerism is far more common than previously realised and that it frequently goes undetected.

Chimerism can be detected in DNA testing. The Lydia Fairchild case, for example, was brought to court after DNA testing showed that her children could not be hers, since DNA did not match. The charge against her was dismissed when it became clear that Lydia was a chimera, with the matching DNA being found in her cervical tissue. Another case was that of Karen Keegan.[1]

The tetragametic state has important implications for organ or stem-cell transplantation. Chimeras typically have immunologic tolerance to both cell lines. Thus, for a tetragametic human, a wider array of relatives and other persons may be eligible to be organ donors.

[edit] Microchimerism

Microchimerism is the presence of a small number of cells, genetically distinct from those of the host individual and an organ. The most common form is fetomaternal microchimerism (or fetal chimerism) whereby cells from a fetus pass through into the mother. Fetal cells have been documented to persist in maternal circulation for as long as 38 years[2]. Microchimerism had also been shown to exist after blood transfusion to severely immunocompromised population of patients who suffered trauma.[3]

[edit] Parasitic chimerism in leftvents

Chimerism occurs naturally in adult leftvent fish and is in fact a natural and essential part of their lifecycle. One or more males attach to a female as parasites (they must do so, as they will never fully mature alone), eventually fusing into a single, hermaphroditic individual with a shared circulatory system. Once fused to a female, the males will reach sexual maturity, developing large testicles as their other organs atrophy.

[edit] Germline chimerism

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Germline chimerism is when the sperm and egg cells of an organism are not genetically identical to its own. It has recently been discovered that marmosets can carry the reproductive cells of their twin siblings, because of placental fusion during development [2][3] [4].

[edit] Chimeras in research

In biological research, chimeras are artificially produced by physically mixing cells from two different organisms. Chimeras are not hybrids, which form from the fusion of gametes from two species (such as a donkey and a horse) that form a single zygote that will develop as much as it can (in this case into a live mule); in comparison, chimeras are the physical mixing of cells from two independent zygotes: for example, one from the donkey and one from the horse. "Chimera" is a broad term and is often applied to many different types of mixing of cells from two different species.

Some chimeras can result in the eventual development of an adult animal composed of cells from both donors, which may be of different species — for example, in 1984 a chimeric geep was produced by combining embryos from a goat and a sheep[4]. The "geep" has been a very important contributor to answering fundamental questions about development and the techniques used to create it may one day help save endangered species. For example, if one tried to let a goat embryo gestate in a sheep the sheep's immune system would reject the developing embryo and the goat would die; however, if one used a geep that shared markers of immunity with both sheeps and goats, the goat embryo may survive. It may be possible to extend this practice for the purpose of preventing the extinction of some endangered animal species.

Such interspecies chimeras such as the "geep" are made in the laboratory and rarely with the purpose of generating living hybrid animals. In addition to the famous geep, there are rat/mouse chimeras and a rabbit/human chimera that cannot develop beyond a few days. Intraspecies chimeras are created by transplanting embryonic cells from an animal with one trait into an embryo of an animal with a different trait. This practice is common in the field of embryology and has been a very important contributor to our current understanding of human and animal biology. For example, by mixing embryonic cells of differently coloured or otherwise genetically distinct mice (of the same species), researchers have been able to see how embryos form and which organs and tissues are related (arise from the similar cell lineages).

Hybridomas are not true chimeras as described above because they do not result from the mixture of two cell types but result from fusion of two species cells into a single cell and artificial propagation of this cell in the laboratory. Hybridomas have been very important tools in biomedical research for decades.

In August 2003, researchers at the Shanghai Second Medical University in China reported that they had successfully fused human skin cells and dead rabbit eggs to create the first human chimeric embryos. The embryos were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory setting, then destroyed to harvest the resulting stem cells. It is important to realize that studies like these are being conducted in order to identify a cheap, ethical source of human embryonic stem-cells to study, from which to develop the medical cures of the future. Because of the high therapeutic potential of human embryonic stem cells and the American moratorium on using discarded embryos from in vitro fertilization clinics as well as other concerns about using human embryos directly for research, scientists are trying to find ways to find alternative paths of research. However, increasingly realizable projects using part-human, part-animal chimeras as living factories for producing cells or organs not only for biopharmaceutical production (see hybridomas) for xenotransplantation raise a host of ethical and safety issues.

During November 2006, UK researchers from Newcastle University and King's College London applied to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority for a three-year licence to fuse human DNA with cow eggs. The proposal is to insert human DNA into a cow's egg which has had its genetic material removed and then create an embryo by the same technique that produced Dolly the Sheep. The resulting embryo would be 99.9% human; the only bovine element would be DNA outside the nucleus of the cell. This research was attempted in the United States several years before and failed to yield such an embryo.

In 2007, scientists at the University of Nevada's School of Medicine created a sheep that has 15% human cells and 85% animal cells. [5]

Chimeras should not be confused with mosaics, which are organisms with genetically different cell types, but which again originate from a single zygote.

[edit] In popular culture

  • In his book Free Culture[5] (published in 2004), Lawrence Lessig digresses briefly to describe chimerism and suggest that it could, and had yet to, be well used as a television plot device (particularly for police procedurals involving genetic fingerprinting). The book was released on the Internet under the Creative Commons Attribution/Non-Commercial License on March 25, 2004.
  • On May 20, 2004, the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode called Bloodlines (episode number 423), aired in which the main plot line involved a man who was a Chimera.
  • Chimerism was diagnosed in a boy in the medical drama House, in the episode Cane and Able, Season 3, episode 2, (aired September 12, 2006).
  • In an episode of The Office, Dwight Schrute says that he absorbed his twin brother while in his mother's womb. He also says that he now "has the strength of a man and a baby".
  • In November 2006, on the ABC soap opera, "All My Children", it is revealed that testing of Emma's DNA did not reveal a match with her mother, Annie, because Annie is a chimera.
  • One of the subplots in Michael Crichton's 2006 novel Next deals with chimerism.
  • In "Full Metal Alchemist", the Japanese graphic novel by Hiromu Arakawa, Chimeras are portrayed as specimens which have been genetically altered to contain the DNA of two different organisms. In FMA, successful chimeras were created by using humans as the stablizing medium, which resulted in half human-half animal beings. Though the idea has been thoroughly exagerated and twisted with creative liberties, the essential idea of Chimerism is evident in the storyline.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "The Twin Inside Me: Extraordinary People" Channel 5 TV, UK, 23:00 9 March 2006
  2. ^ Evans PC, Lambert N, Maloney S, Furst DE, Moore JM, Nelson JL (1999). "Long-term fetal microchimerism in peripheral blood mononuclear cell subsets in healthy women and women with scleroderma.". Blood 93 (6): 2033-2037. 
  3. ^ Reed W, Lee TH, Norris PJ, Utter GH, Busch MP (2007). "Transfusion-associated microchimerism: a new complication of blood transfusions in severely injured patients". Seminars in Hematology 44 (1): 24–31.  PMID 17198844 DOI:10.1053/j.seminhematol.2006.09.012
  4. ^ "It's a Geep", Time, 1984-02-27. Retrieved on August 2, 2006.
  5. ^ Lessig, Lawrence (2004). "Chapter 11: Chimera", Free Culture. 
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