In a breakthrough  development  which  hold
immense  hope for childless couples, researchers from  the  Wales
College  of  Medicine  at Cardiff University  have  succeeded  in
devising  a  way to make human eggs behave as if they  have  been
fertilised without using sperm.

The  team  believes  that this could  provide  a  more  ethically
acceptable  way of creating 'embryonic' stem cells and  according
to  the findings published in the New Scientist, the  researchers
used  an  enzyme found in sperm to prompt the egg to  divide  and
they  are  hopeful  that the enzyme could also be  used  to  help
couples  unable to have children because the man's sperm has  too
little of this key protein called PLC-zeta.

PLC-zeta, phospholipase C-zeta, is produced by sperm, and plays a
key role in activating the egg, allowing it to be fertilised.

The  Cardiff  team, led by Professor Karl Swann, found  that  the
embryos  appeared  to  undergo  the  same  changes  as  naturally
fertilised  eggs,  suggesting they will also be able  to  produce
stem cells.

"There  are  a  number  of  potential  benefits,  including   the
possibility  of generating embryonic stem cells without the  need
to  use embryos that were originally created for a  couple's  IVF
treatment,"  Nazar Amso, a senior lecturer in the  Department  of
Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Wales College  of
Medicine, said.

He also added that it could also help couples affected by  severe
male  factor infertility for who conventional IVF  procedures  do
not work.

"This  could  be because the sperm is deficient in  the  PLC-zeta
which activates the egg. It may be that we could use this  enzyme
as  a therapy for couples whose only option currently is  to  use
donor  sperm.It is very early days. But this is the beginning  of
very promising avenues of research," he added.(ANI)