Here is Question No. 16 a part of our series on UPSC Prelims 2021.
Q16. In the context of hereditary diseases, consider the following statements:
- Passing on mitochondrial diseases from parent to child can be prevented by mitochondrial
replacement therapy either before or after in vitro fertilization of egg. - A child inherits mitochondrial diseases entirely from mother and not from father.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
a) 1 only
b) 2 only
c) Both 1 and 2
d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer: (c)
- The first statement is true. The idea behind mitochondrial replacement treatment (MRT), a type of reproductive in vitro fertilization (IVF), is to replace a woman’s damaged mitochondrial DNA (mt-DNA) with a healthy copy from a donor. MRT uses a variety of procedures, such as polar body transfer, pronuclear transfer, and spindle transfer (ST) (PBT).
- A crucial method of MRT used after fertilization is the pronuclear transfer procedure, in which two zygotes are developed in vitro.
- Prenatal diagnostic and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis are forms of selective reproduction, as is the maternal spindle transfer (MST) procedure, which is used prior to fertilization (PGD)
- The second claim is true. In animals, mitochondria are the only organelle that both houses a gene and contains DNA in circular form, together with the nucleus. Very few mitochondria and mitochondrial genes can be found in sperm. Therefore, the mitochondrial genes in the offspring are passed down from the mother. As a result, a father who has a mitochondrial gene deficiency cannot pass the illness on to his children.
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