United Kingdom: A new study, published in the journal Current Biology, has stated that scientists have succeeded in genetically engineering female fruit flies that can have offspring without needing a male. This marks the first time ‘virgin birth’ has been induced in an animal.
Scientists stated that they identified the genes that enable one species of fruit fly to produce young without their eggs being fertilized by sperm. Virgin birth, also called parthenogenesis, is rare but not impossible in the animal kingdom.
Sexual reproduction usually involves a female’s egg being fertilized by sperm from a male. But for parthenogenesis, the female develops the egg into an embryo all on her own.
Ms. Alexis Sperling, a researcher at the UK’s Cambridge University and lead author of the study, and several US-based researchers decided to experiment on a species of fruit fly called Drosophila melanogaster.
The fly, which sexually reproduces normally, is one of the most studied animals for genetic research, meaning it could take advantage of more than a century’s worth of knowledge.
First, the research team sequenced the genomes of two strains of another fruit fly, Drosophila mercatorum. One strain reproduced solely via virgin birth, while the other needed a male. The researchers then compared the results, aiming to pinpoint the genes behind virgin births. After that, they manipulated the genes of Drosophila melanogaster to match what they saw in its close relative.
“The result was fully parthenogenetic flies, which was much to my delight,” Ms. Sperling noted.
The research, which took six years, involved more than 220,000 fruit flies. If the genetically engineered flies had access to males, they would reproduce as normal. But among those kept in isolation, 1-2 percent gave up on ever seeing a male approximately halfway through their life and had a virgin birth.
Their offspring, which were all female, as is the case with all virgin births, had young of their own at about the same rate.
However, mammals, including humans, are not capable of having virgin births because their reproduction requires certain genes from sperm.
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