Sons I gave birth to are 'unrelated' to me

The Telegraph ^ | November 13, 2003 | Roger Highfield

[NYer]

One human chimera came to light when a 52-year-old woman demanded an explanation from doctors after tests showed that two of her three grown-up sons were biologically unrelated to her.

Although the woman, "Jane", conceived them naturally with her husband, tests to see if she could donate a kidney suggested that somehow she had given birth to somebody else's children.

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine by Dr Margot Kruskall, of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston, Massachusetts, showed that Jane is a chimera, a mixture of two individuals - non-identical twin sisters - whose cells intermingled in the womb and grew into a single body.

Dr Kruskall believes the most likely explanation is that Jane's mother conceived non-identical twin girls, who fused at an early stage of the pregnancy to form a single embryo, according to a report published today in New Scientist.

For some reason, cells from only one twin dominate in Jane's blood - used for tissue-typing. In her other tissues, however, including her ovaries, cells of both twins live amicably alongside each other, hence the apparently impossible genetics of her three sons.

One son came from an egg derived from the twin whose cells dominate Jane's blood, while his brothers came from eggs derived from the other twin's cells.

Around 30 similar instances of chimerism have been reported, and there are probably many more who will never discover their unusual origins. Most chimeras probably go through life unaware of their unusual constitution.

[PatrickHenry]

Earlier thread on this: The Mum Made of TWO Women.

[nothingnew]

I guess what all that means is that it's a rare but natural occurence...I take back my "screwing around" comment, and am humbled.

Thanks for reply.

FMCDH

[MHGinTN]

Thanks, PH!

[Darksheare]

I will not experiment of the test subjects known as 'mankind'.
I will not.. I will not.. I will not..

[Trident/Delta]

...the Chimera was an awesome fire-breathing monster with the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a serpent......

Soooo... Hildebeast is a Chimera????.....

Oops, my bad....in her case it is the head of a serpent, body of a goat and tail of a lion... what do they call that "mythology"????

[JoeSchem]

how many souls will go to heaven or hell? One or two or ...?

In one of the epistles to the Corinthians (sorry, I forget which), the apostle Paul refers to the perishing of our current bodies and likens it to the planting of a seed, from which will grow our spiritual bodies. Since we'll get new bodies in the Resurrection, this controversy is covered by Christianity.

I wonder how chimeric genetics fits in with the philosophy of Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, since you'd think that after supposedly billions of years of evolution, our 'selfish' genes would have figured out how to keep sibling genes from squeezing in on their action.

[MineralMan]

"I don't suppose you'd care to summarize this "simple explanation"? I don't see how she could be biologically unrelated to her biological sister's biological children. "

Of course she's related. It's just that she didn't appear to be the mother.

[RightWhale]

I had one blue and one brown eye

Very common in Alaska. Sled dogs, sure, but it is spooky the first time you see it.

[stuartcr]

Why?

[_Jim]

The 'laws' that were supposedly put into effect when man was 'created' ...

[Sloth]

Then go re-read Lloyd's post in #33, because you obviously didn't understand it.

[cajungirl]

This fascinates me too. If I were she, I might feel very creeped out or very blessed, sort of like I was a mausoleum for my dead never known sister. It would be weird. And the two eye colors, I have a friend with one green and one blue eye. My daughter at birth had a blue and a brown eye. The blue eye turned brown at a few weeks . The ped told me the brown eye was a nevus I guess. We used to joke and make up songs like "dont it make your brown and blue eye ,,yadda yadda.

[cajungirl]

You know the beauty of this story,,,NOONE CAN SUE ANYONE OVER IT

[Heatseeker]

One case in England had a child with one testicle and one ovary, so that is possible as well.

So Dennis Kucinich is British?

[MHGinTN]

I have to chime in again because I have given incorrect directions.

The mitochondria of the two early embryos may have mixed around time of both embryos 'hatching' from the zona pellucida in which they transited to the uterus. HOWEVER, the histocompatibility would be directly related to the membrane formation of stem cells subsequent to the welding of the embryos, since it is the molecular identity complex in the cell membrane that mediates the primary histocompatibility and thus tissue rejection. Somehow (and I have no idea how), the susequent cell membrane formation with stem cells, following the welding of the two embryos inside the chamber formed by a single placental organ, resulted in a cellular membrane combining the histocompatiblity molecules and thus commonality was transmitted to every cell that developed into the birthed organism. [Neat trick, don'tcha know. If scientists could figure out how to do it in a lab setting, tissue rejection that plagues organ transplantation would all but vanish!]

[wizardoz]

Now this is non-identical twins, so this is... two eggs both released and fertilized at the same time?

[AndyTheBear]

Question for the Christians (or Muslims or whatever)

how many souls will go to heaven or hell? One or two or ...?

Christians know that Jesus died for our sins, and we know other things that God chooses to reveal to us. But even many things within the natural world, such as quantum physics is hard enough for the mind of man, without understanding everything about the super-natural.

Why would you expect Christians to know everything God knows?

[Capt.YankeeMike]

a more logical explanation would be that Jane got a little "freaky" with someone other than her husband and is grasping at straws for an alternative explanation....
The Capt.

[Qwinn]

"If I were she, I might feel very creeped out or very blessed, sort of like I was a mausoleum for my dead never known sister."

She'd be looking at it the wrong way then. Neither sister was any more "dead" than the other. She is parts of -both sisters- in a very real way. Some organs with the genetic sequence of one and some with the other.

I think even if the brain was all based on one genetic makeup, it still wouldn't be "one" sister that survived. The entire endocrine system greatly affects people's personalities.

I find this absolutely wild.

Qwinn