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Can you "grow" a human from 2 sets of same sex parent DNA? (lemm.ee)

submitted 4 weeks ago by Fleur_@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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Idk if this makes sense.

Obviously not via sexual reproduction but could a person's genetic parents be of the same sex and that person be genetically indistinguishable from the rest of the population?

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[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 60 points 4 weeks ago (10 children)

Interesting question, I found this

You can’t make a baby with two moms by simply fusing two eggs or adding one egg’s DNA to another’s. Even though the resulting embryo would have the usual 46 chromosomes, this wouldn’t work.

The reason isn’t some special string of A’s, G’s, T’s or C’s found in dad’s DNA. No, instead it has to do with chemical marks found on egg and sperm DNA. This methylation (as the marks are called) makes the DNA from each parent unique, and you need both to make a baby.

What these marks do is affect how at least 80 different genes are used. In science speak, these genes are imprinted.

As you may remember, we have two copies of each of our genes, one from each biological parent. The chemical marks shut off either the copy from the egg or sperm, depending on which has the marks present..

If an embryo’s DNA came from two parents of the same sex, then both copies of some of these imprinted genes will be shut off. And for the rest of these genes, both copies will be turned on. Embryos simply can’t survive when so many genes are out of whack. In fact, diseases like Angelman syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome, and Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome can happen when just one of these genes isn’t passed on properly.

You can read more here if you’re curious

[–] Lovstuhagen@hilariouschaos.com 3 points 4 weeks ago

Great post - I figured that this would be the case based off of the idea that, whether you are male or female, certain markers can only be passed on through father/mother...

Your haplogroup, for instance, always comes from the father. It would seem to me, then, that things like haplogroups would only be linked to male genetics, and simply smushing together two men's genetics would result in things like repeat haplogroups and a total lack of mtDNA.

Perhaps, eventually, technology would exist that could translate the haplogroup of a female into the genetic code necessary for reproductive genetic combination, and likewise extract female-specific reproductive code from a male and do the same... But yeah, I imagine that would also just be the point of full genetic customization from top to bottom, and so the ability to do that would no longer be surprising but simply something that has come to us as a byproduct of advanced gene editing.

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