Phil Goetz found an error in my earlier posting, and I would like to correct it:
I wrote:
>>> The baby would
>>> carry nuclear genes from the infertile woman and mitochondrial genes from
>>> the donor woman.
Phil wrote:
>>Wait a minute... you said the nucleus from the healthy egg is transferred
>>to the infertile egg. So isn't this the other way around: nuclear genes
>>from the donor, mitochondrial genes from the infertile woman?
>>Which makes it not particularly useful.
You are correct on the first point, Phil, the nucleus is transferred from the infertile egg into the fertile egg, meaning that the cytoplasm of the healthy egg surrounds the infertile nucleus and revitalizes it. (I've got to stop typing posts when I'm tired, it leads to dyslexic errors like this one.) Ethical objections to this procedure center on the issue of how much mitochondrial DNA gets transferred and possibly mutates, leading to birth defects.
Thank you for catching that!
Kathryn Aegis