Damn, Nature You Scary

[Trausti]

Every once in awhile you learn something that is something.

When a DNA Test Says You’re a Younger Man, Who Lives 5,000 Miles Away l

Three months after his bone marrow transplant, Chris Long of Reno, Nev., learned that the DNA in his blood had changed. It had all been replaced by the DNA of his donor, a German man he had exchanged just a handful of messages with.

He’d been encouraged to test his blood by a colleague at the Sheriff’s Office, where he worked. She had an inkling this might happen. It’s the goal of the procedure, after all: Weak blood is replaced by healthy blood, and with it, the DNA it contains.

But four years after his lifesaving procedure, it was not only Mr. Long’s blood that was affected. Swabs of his lips and cheeks contained his DNA — but also that of his donor. Even more surprising to Mr. Long and other colleagues at the crime lab, all of the DNA in his semen belonged to his donor. “I thought that it was pretty incredible that I can disappear and someone else can appear,” he said.

 

[Valjean]

Yikes! He's morphing into a chimera. 1950s Sci-fi come real!

I'm pretty sure my uncle Stan is a pod-person, though...

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That surprises me. I can see the cheek swabs getting donor DNA, but why in the world did his semen change?

(Now, if you want weird--there was a woman arrested for welfare fraud because the test said she wasn't the mother. Then she gave birth again--and the DNA still said she wasn't the mother of the baby that had just come out of her body. Chimera--her ovaries don't have the same DNA as whatever they tested.)

 

[Bomb#20]

Now, if you want weird--there was a woman arrested for welfare fraud because the test said she wasn't the mother.

That is weird. Who was the brain-damaged DA who thought this proved welfare fraud? Hadn't the idiot ever heard of babies accidentally switched at birth?

 

[Keith&Co.]

That surprises me. I can see the cheek swabs getting donor DNA, but why in the world did his semen change?

Botany was a long time ago, but if i remember correctly, saliva and semen both are created by filtering fluids out of the blood? So if the marrow changed, it would affect blood and then semen, saliva, sweat, urine...

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Now, if you want weird--there was a woman arrested for welfare fraud because the test said she wasn't the mother.

That is weird. Who was the brain-damaged DA who thought this proved welfare fraud? Hadn't the idiot ever heard of babies accidentally switched at birth?

Welfare fraud, as in that she was claiming kids as hers that really were her sister's. (A chimera's DNA is that of your sibling. Since it was ovarian tissue it must be XX.)

That surprises me. I can see the cheek swabs getting donor DNA, but why in the world did his semen change?

Botany was a long time ago, but if i remember correctly, saliva and semen both are created by filtering fluids out of the blood? So if the marrow changed, it would affect blood and then semen, saliva, sweat, urine...

I thought the fluid filtered out didn't have DNA, but perhaps there are some white blood cells. It shouldn't change the actual DNA in the sperm, though--a baby should test out as being from the father, not the donor.

 

[Jokodo]

You want weird? There was a women who appeared to be not her daughters mother, and on closer inspection to be male. Turned out she was a chimera with one xy cell line at nearly 100% in blood dominating and most other tissues, but enough if the ex line in the ovaries to build fully functional, well, ovaries.

 

[fromderinside]

Oh wait. What? Natural History of Mixed Chimerism After Bone Marrow Transplantation With CD6-Depleted Allogeneic Marrow: A Stable Equilibrium https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1e07/f6f92e7f27e5cb5c51ecf91d2c767d849c34.pdf

Good reason to donate to a sperm bank before you get bone marrow.

 

[Peez]

That surprises me. I can see the cheek swabs getting donor DNA, but why in the world did his semen change?

Botany was a long time ago, but if i remember correctly, saliva and semen both are created by filtering fluids out of the blood? So if the marrow changed, it would affect blood and then semen, saliva, sweat, urine...

Not exactly. Fluids do move from compartment to compartment (blood to interstitial fluid to lymph, etc.), and in some cases secreted fluids are basically filtered versions (e.g., urine). However, semen cannot be fairly described thus.

In general these fluids do not contain DNA (as far as we know). It is cells floating in the fluids that carry DNA (e.g., white blood cells). Semen is made up of sperm cells swimming in a complex fluid with components produced by several glands (there may be other cells in there, but they would be rare compared to the sperm). It certainly is surprising that DNA is somehow finding its way from bone marrow to sperm cells, but it is conceivable. Cells do shift around the body, and colonize other areas (think metastasis), and some bone marrow cells are 'stem cells' and can potentially mature into other cells types (perhaps even spermatogonia, the cells that produce sperm cells). That would still not explain why there was not simply a mixture of the original DNA and the donor DNA in the sperm.

Peez

 

[Peez]

Welfare fraud, as in that she was claiming kids as hers that really were her sister's. (A chimera's DNA is that of your sibling. Since it was ovarian tissue it must be XX.)

I can imagine cells in an ovary being "XY", under the influence of hormones produced elsewhere in the body.

Peez

 

[Rhea]

Welfare fraud, as in that she was claiming kids as hers that really were her sister's. (A chimera's DNA is that of your sibling. Since it was ovarian tissue it must be XX.)

The chimera I read about was a case of a twin absorbing its sibling in utero and having different DNA in its marrow compared to the rest of her body.

This was another one discovered when mother didn’t match child, but father did.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Welfare fraud, as in that she was claiming kids as hers that really were her sister's. (A chimera's DNA is that of your sibling. Since it was ovarian tissue it must be XX.)

The chimera I read about was a case of a twin absorbing its sibling in utero and having different DNA in its marrow compared to the rest of her body.

This was another one discovered when mother didn’t match child, but father did.

The case I'm talking about was obviously a woman who absorbed her sister in the womb. I wonder how many undetected chimeras there are out there.

 

[Jokodo]

Welfare fraud, as in that she was claiming kids as hers that really were her sister's. (A chimera's DNA is that of your sibling. Since it was ovarian tissue it must be XX.)

The chimera I read about was a case of a twin absorbing its sibling in utero and having different DNA in its marrow compared to the rest of her body.

This was another one discovered when mother didn’t match child, but father did.

The case I'm talking about was obviously a woman who absorbed her sister in the womb. I wonder how many undetected chimeras there are out there.

No one really knows. No one really knows how many bipaternal twins there are either. But given 7 billion people and realistic estimates for both figures, there are almost certainly a number of people, quite possibly 1000s, alive who have more than one biological father.

 

[Treedbear]

Welfare fraud, as in that she was claiming kids as hers that really were her sister's. (A chimera's DNA is that of your sibling. Since it was ovarian tissue it must be XX.)

The chimera I read about was a case of a twin absorbing its sibling in utero and having different DNA in its marrow compared to the rest of her body.

This was another one discovered when mother didn’t match child, but father did.

The case I'm talking about was obviously a woman who absorbed her sister in the womb. I wonder how many undetected chimeras there are out there.

A twin can "absorb her sister in the womb"??? Wow, that's weird. How does it work? So much for being innocent at birth if you think life begins at conception.

 

[Peez]

The case I'm talking about was obviously a woman who absorbed her sister in the womb. I wonder how many undetected chimeras there are out there.

A twin can "absorb her sister in the womb"??? Wow, that's weird. How does it work? So much for being innocent at birth if you think life begins at conception.

Very early in development, you are just a cluster of cells. These cells have started to sort out what they should grow into, but they have not really committed to a specific developmental path. Each cell is growing and dividing, releasing and responding to signals. There is a growing coordination with nearby cells. Normally those nearby cells are clones (they descend from the same fertilized egg), but if a nearby cluster of cells happens to bump into this cluster of cells, the nearby cells are actually cells of a sibling. This does not prevent them from exchanging signals and becoming part of the cooperative collection of cells that eventually grows into a human. In such cases, some of the human's cells grew from one cluster (and therefore from one fertilized egg), while the rest grew from another cluster (and therefore another fertilized egg, essentially a sibling).

Peez

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The case I'm talking about was obviously a woman who absorbed her sister in the womb. I wonder how many undetected chimeras there are out there.

A twin can "absorb her sister in the womb"??? Wow, that's weird. How does it work? So much for being innocent at birth if you think life begins at conception.

It's siamese twins taken to the extreme. Rather than two people who share body parts you get one person that some parts of them are from their sibling.