X -Factor Breeding Theory
It's an interesting read. However, as it pertains to genes, it is much more complicated than that. In the 1980's , two groups of scientist , one in phili and one in Cambridge , made a surprising discovery, They tried to create a uniparental mouse- a mouse with only one parent. Since strict cloning from a body cell was impossible in mice (post- Dolly, this is quickly changing) , the Phili team swapped the "pronuclei" of the two fertalised eggs. When an egg has been fertalised by a sperm, the sperm nucleus containing the choromosone enters the egg, but does not first fuse with the egg nucleus: the two nuclei are known as "pronuclei". A clever scientist can sneak in with his pipette and suck out the sperm pronuclei, replacing it with the egg pronucleus from another egg- and vice versa. The result is two viable eggs, but one genetically speaking with two fathers and no mother and one with two mothers and no father. The Cabridge team used slightly different tecnique, but achieved the same result. But in both cases, such embryos failed to develop properly and soon died in the womb. In the two mothers case, the embryo itself was properly organized, but it could not make a placenta with wich to sustain itself. In the two father case, the embryo grew a large and healthy placenta and most of the membranes that surround the foetus. But inside, where the embryo should be, there was a disorganized blob of cells with no discernible head.
This result led to an extraordinary conclusion. PATERNAL GENES INHERITED FROM THE FATHER, ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MAKING OF THE PLACENTA: MATERNAL GENES, INHERITED FROM MOTHER, ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR MAKING THE GREATER PART OF THE EMBRYO, ESPECIALLY IT'S HEAD AND BRAIN. As it turns out, the placenta is not a maternal organ designed to give sustanance to the foetus, or a paternal organ, but rather a FOETAL organ designed to parasitize the maternal blood supply and brook no opposition in the process. The placenta literally bores its way into the mothers vessels, forcing them to dilate, and then proceeds to produce hormones which raise the mother's blood pressure and blood sugar. The mother responds by raising her insulin levels to combat this invasion. yet for some reason if the foetal hormone is missing, the mother does not need to raise her insulin levels and a normal pregnancy ensues. In other words, although a mother and foetus have a common purpose, they argue fiercly about how much of the mother's resources the foetus may have. - exactly as they later will during weaning.
The foetus is built partly with the maternal genes albeit a very small part. , so it's not surprising that the genes find themselves with a situational conflict of interests. The father's genes in the Foetus have no such worries. They do not have the mother's interests at heart, except insofar as she provides a home for them. To turn briefly anthropomophic, the father's genes do not trust the mother's genes to make a sufficiently invasive placenta; so they do the job themselves. Hence the paternal imprinting of placental genes as discovered by the two-fathered embryos.
Mind blowing stuff eh.. yes the female is responsible for the core of mammal , but the male plays a pivotal role.