erase parental imprinting, consanguinity

[Sentinel166]

Hi.

I would like to ask, has there been attempt at erasing imprinting done on a chromosome, for instance by cultivating them in bacteria or a different genetic system, or individual... or merely cells cultural of the same organism ?

That way we could get mono-parental disomy to be viable, since the only reason they don't (I think NO such mouse develops, right ?), is imprinting.

I am a student, or researcher... whatever that means, interested in consanguinity, its effect, beyond the usual "recessive" mantra. I figured out that the simplest, to reveal every "defect" or considered as such regards to functionality, would first be this:

- father gives an abnormal gamete, with both X and Y. Mother gives normal X. Hence no disomy. We cause twins to split early by destroying an X in a blastomeric line, and a Y in the other.

The twins are fraternal, yet 97% identical save for a few genes in the Y.

Ignoring recessives, what could go wrong ?

Then, if we could erase remove imprinting altogether, we do the same with a male embryo, remove an Y in a cell line but instead, clone an X.

Then, the F1 product, or rather cells cultures from it, would show all sorts of interesting things, don't you think ?

Does that have been studied ? Since we still breed mice the "old" way, I suspect it's not a method to create mutant lines that is currently successful.

I wonder if besides recessives, there is an interest in having different alleles. Besides the "natural selection" or "immune system" argument... Could a diploid organism be viable if all genes had working identical alleles ? A mammal ?

 

Thanks for your answers !

Mehdi, 27 years old, graduated in biology (*licence, 3y post Baccalauréat )