有性生殖物种的单亲繁殖

Parthenogenesis and Human Cloning

生物科技的进步,如转基因技术与细胞核转移技术,不但改变了生物学与医药学的研究模式,更加深了和革新着我们对人类自身生物学特性的认识。通过定义线粒体DNA为转基因,我们曾提出核化线粒体组学与转基因人的新概念。鉴于有关克隆人的技术安全性与伦理学的争论,探讨了是否存在天然克隆人的可能性及检验这一可能性的相关研究途径;同时还探讨了单亲繁殖在遗传诊断中可能具有的指导作用。

The advances in biotechnologies including gene transfer and nuclear transfer, not only changed the way for biomedical research, but also greatly help us to re-realize human beings in a broader view. We recently suggested Mitochromics and transgenic human analysis by defining mitochondrial DNA as a transgene. In the present paper, we point out a new topic in order to add some scientific impact in human clone debate. The focus of our discussion is whether there is a naturally occurring human cloning. With a brief introduction about parthenogenesis, the biosafety and ethics of somatic and germ line cloning are compared, and several strategies leading to the identification of naturally occurring human cloning have been proposed. The potential application of parthenogenesis concept in genetic diagnostics is also discussed.