• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Mouse Embryo With 6 Legs And No Genitals Created By Scientists – But Why?

April 2, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

A six-legged mouse embryo, with extra limbs in place of genitals, has been engineered by scientists. It sounds like sci-fi, we know – but the curious creature, which also has several of its internal organs outside of its body, wasn’t created intentionally. Rather, it was an unprecedented outcome of research that has, in turn, revealed how DNA’s 3D structure can affect embryo development.

It all started when developmental biologist Moisés Mallo and his colleagues were studying Tgfbr1 – a receptor protein that is particularly important in embryonic development. The team inactivated the gene responsible for producing the protein in mouse embryos that were around the halfway point of development, intending to investigate how this change affected the developing spinal cord. 

Advertisement

Instead, they found something unexpected: one of the bioengineered embryos had two extra legs where its genitals should be.

“I didn’t choose the project, the project chose me,” Mallo told Nature of the surprising turn the research took.

During embryonic development, the body is made in stages, starting from the head and ending in the tail. In the first transitional stage, there is a switch from head to trunk development; and in the second, from trunk to tail. This latter transition involves significant reorganization of embryonic structures.

Tgfbr1 – or transforming growth factor-beta receptor type 1, to use its full name – is known to play a key role in trunk-to-tail transition, and also in controlling the formation of the hindlimbs and external genitalia.

Advertisement

It is also widely accepted that, in most four-limbed animals, external genitalia and hind limbs develop from the same early (primordial) structures.

Investigating the six-legged mouse phenomenon, Mallo and co-authors discovered that Tgfbr1 helps dictate whether these structures become either genitals or limbs. It does this, they realized, by altering the way that DNA folds in the structure’s cells. As a result, deactivation of the protein changes the expression of other genes – in this strange case, at least, that meant additional limbs and no genitalia.

Genetically engineered mouse embryo with extra limbs

3D reconstruction of the mouse embryo with Tgfbr1 deactivated. Normal limbs are in turquoise and extra limbs are in magenta.

Image credit: Lozovska et al., Nature Communications, 2024 (CC BY 4.0)

“We show that despite long evolutionary distance from the ancestral condition, the early primordium of the mouse external genitalia preserved the capacity to take hindlimb fates,” the researchers explain in their paper.

They now hope to explore whether Tgfbr1 can alter DNA structure in other systems, and if it has a role to play in the development of the reptilian “double penis” known as a hemipenis.

Advertisement

“Our work uncovers a remarkable tissue plasticity with potential implications in the evolution of the hindlimb/genital area of tetrapods [four-limbed vertebrates], and identifies an additional mechanism for Tgfbr1 activity that might also contribute to the control of other physiological or pathological processes,” they conclude.

In search of another six-legged developmental wonder? Meet Ariel the “mermaid” dog: born with six limbs (and a second vulva), she’s now down to the usual four after successful surgery to remove the extras.

The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Soccer – FIFA backs down on threat to fine Premier clubs who play South American players
  2. U.S. House passes abortion rights bill, outlook poor in Senate
  3. UBS clients raise $650 million for biggest yet biotech impact fund
  4. This Is What Cannabis Looks Like Under A Microscope – You Might Be Surprised

Source Link: Mouse Embryo With 6 Legs And No Genitals Created By Scientists – But Why?

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • “Uncharted Waters”: Large Hadron Collider Begins Colliding Oxygen For The First Time
  • 125,000-Year-Old Neanderthal “Fat Factory” Shows They Gorged On Bone Grease
  • On July 3, Earth Will Reach Its Farthest Point From The Sun – 152 Million Kilometers Away
  • NASA’s Perseverance Rover May Have Recorded Evidence Of Electrified Dust Devils On Mars
  • “Hymn to Babylon”: Missing Mesopotamian Text Dating Back Nearly 3,000 Years Discovered
  • Multiple New Species Of Cute Spotty And Stripy Geckos Discovered In Remote Cambodia
  • ChatGPT May Be Surprisingly Good At Piloting Spacecraft, Taking 2nd Place In Spaceflight Competition
  • Incredible Supernova Finding Shows That “Double-Detonation Mechanism” Happens In Nature
  • Soda Cans, Asthma Inhalers, And… Water Bottles? All Things That Could Explode In Your Car This Summer
  • Video: Is There An Ideal Sleeping Position?
  • If You Look Up At The Right Time Today, You Will See A Giant “X” On The Moon
  • We May Have Our Third Interstellar Visitor And It’s Nothing Like The Previous Two
  • Orcas Filmed Kissing (With Tongues) In The Wild For The First Time
  • How Easy Is It For A Country To Change Its Time Zone?
  • Earth’s First Commercial Space Station Set To Launch In 2026
  • Black Hole Moon: Rogue Planets With Weird Signatures Could Be A Sign Of Advanced Alien Life
  • World’s Largest Ephemeral Lake Set To Turn Iconic Peachy Pink After Extreme Flooding
  • Stunning New JWST Observations Give Further Evidence That Dark Matter Is A Real Substance
  • How Big Is This Spider? Study Explains Why You Might Overestimate Their Size
  • Orcas Sometimes Give Humans Presents Of Food And We Don’t Know Why
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version