#aneuploidy

[bpod-bpod]

Actin Your Age

Loss of or impairment of a protein called F-actin in eggs of older females underlies the increased incidence of embryos with an abnormal chromosome number

Read the original article here

Still from video from work by Sam Dunkley and Binyam Mogessie

School of Biochemistry, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Science Advances, January 2023

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[cytgen]

Abstract Worldwide, endometrial cancer is one of the most frequently diagnosed malignancies in women and a notable cause of death. The aim of this study was to perform image cytometric DNA ploidy analysis on a prospective material of endometrial adenocarcinomas in order to determine potential correlation between ploidy status and their histological features. The analysis was carried out in fresh tissue samples resected by implementing complete hysterectomy in a series of patients (n = 126). We found that ploidy status using image cytometry correlate with histologic type, grade and stage in endometrial cancer and aneuploid tumor samples are associated with aggressive phenotype statistics. Furthermore, DNA ploidy should be used as a reliable and applicable prognostic marker in the routine clinical practice.

Keywords: DNA ploidy Image cytometry diploid aneuploidy endometrial carcinoma endometrial cancer

[harrypotterfuryroad]

Are you pretty knowledgeable about genetics regarding sexual reproduction?

my doctorate is closer to neuroscience so i wouldn’t say i’m an expert in genetics but at least i’m not claiming that aneuploidies constitute distinct sexes

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Frederick R. Prete

Published: Mar 1, 2024

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece that appeared on the Substack, Reality’s Last Stand. My intent was to compliment and complement Dr. Wright’s critique of Ian Copeland’s (erroneous) claim that biological sex (which is different from “gender”) is non-binary. Copeland’s somewhat tired arguments were based on a misunderstanding of genetic aneuploidies (errors in chromosome number), and poorly reasoned analogies to the fact that some fish change sex over the course of their lives. I’d like to revisit and expand a few of my points here.

As usual, Wright’s analysis was thoughtful and accurate. However, I wondered out loud how much of this long-suffering debate is shorn up by repeated attempts to engage in it with evermore biologically detailed counter arguments — a thankless task in which I, too, have participated. Although I have the utmost respect for those with the patience to remain in the argumentative fray, I don’t think reason will ever change what is, in effect, an ideological point of view. But, again, I admire those who try.

As I said in the piece, we need to recognize that some arguments are just wrong. So wrong, in fact, that a reasoned rebuttal is not only futile but beside the point. In those instances, we should be honest. I know from decades of teaching that sometimes I have to say to a student — always in a kind and respectful way — that while I appreciate their point of view, it is simply mistaken… It doesn’t jibe with anything that I know about the natural world. In such instances, this is the most honest and effective response, and it allows the discussion to be reset on a more reasonable foundation.

To be clear, even very smart, well-meaning people come up with far-fetched ideas born out of fundamental misunderstandings, or ignorance about a particular topic. (That would be the case, for instance, if I tried to diagnose what’s wrong with your car, a topic about which I know absolutely nothing.) In these instances, it makes little sense to debate the erroneous argument and then rebut the person’s attempts to support their misconceptions with additional unfounded speculations (often ad infinitum). So, if I claim that an animal’s sex is determined by radio waves beamed down from the planet Zenon by unicorns, it would be a waste of your time to explain to me that unicorns couldn’t make radio transmitters with their little hoofs, or that Zenon (wherever it is) is too far away to communicate with us earthlings. If you did offer up this rebuttal, I’d simply come up with some counter argument about unicorn dexterity or the superior strength of unicorn radio technology. That would be a total waste of our time. At some level, I suppose, it’s also disingenuous to pretend that the unicorn argument merits a reasoned response. I think it would be more honest (and effective) just to dismiss the unicorn theory out of hand rather than fueling — and thereby giving credence to — an unending back-and-forth.

That’s how I feel about the recurring claims that disorders of sexual development (DSDs), or genetic aneuploidies represent unique sexes. Frankly, these claims are so discordant with the realities of biology that they will never be refuted successfully by logic, reason, or data. To argue that biological anomalies represent unique sex categories makes no more sense than claiming a syndrome such as CDC (which can result in penile duplication) gives rise to ‘new types’ of men. These arguments are simply wrong. End of conversation.

And, please, just ignore those ridiculous — but supposedly instructive — analogies to animals. Let’s be honest. Animals do a lot of weird things. They enslave other animals, eat their offspring, cannibalize their lovers, kill their newborn twin sisters, and devour their siblings in the womb. Does anyone want to justify slavery or sibling cannibalism because animals do it?

And, how about those strange animal mating behaviors? Consider the male argonaut (a genus of octopus). He grows a sperm carrying third left arm in a pouch under his eye which — when he’s ready for love — explodes out of its sheath, detaches from his face, swims away all by itself, latches onto a female, and then wriggles its way into her mantle cavity to drop off a packet of sperm. Do you think we humans should invent a face-mounted, free-flying phallus to enhance our love-life? After all, it works for the argonaut. (By the way, I don’t think you should add that suggestion to your online dating profile.)

Well, If a free-flying phallus doesn’t seem like a good idea, why would anyone think that the sexual behaviors of other aquatic animals — like sex-changing clown fish — reveal some profound philosophical insights into the human condition?

Even more exasperating is the fact that the people who keep harping on sex-changing fish never get the story straight. The truth is that the sex changes that occur in about 20 families and seven orders of fish are the result of neuro-physiological and hormonal events triggered — depending upon the species — by ultimate body size, perceived social status, or (in the monogamous clown fish, Amphiprioninae) after the big breeding female has disappeared. In addition, the large, dominant, newly-minted female is viciously aggressive to any fish outside of her immediate family. So, if we’re taking our cues from clown fish, let’s not be hypocrites. Let’s go all the way: Only really large, domineering, hyper-monogamous humans who are particularly xenophobic should consider changing sex, but only after all the females in the neighborhood disappear. Does that even make sense? (You know I’m being facetious, right?) It’s a silly analogy. Is it worth debating?

In the previous essay, I also brought up an obvious (but consistently ignored) point of fact: Fish live in the water. People live on land. This makes all the difference in the world when it comes to sex. If you live in water, you can spray your eggs and sperm (gametes) into the liquid environment and let them drift around until they hook up. That’s because, in water, they won’t dry out and die. And, neither will the resulting embryos because they’ll be in the water, too. That’s why some fish can produce eggs or sperm at different times in their lives. It doesn’t take any special external body parts to squirt gametes into water. All you need is a gonad to make the gametes and an orifice to let them out.

However, if you’re a terrestrial mammal (living on dry land), you have a problem. You can’t squirt your gametes on the ground and hope for the best. They’ll shrivel up and die. So, male terrestrial animals evolved special external body parts with which to insert sperm directly into females (where it’s warm and moist), and females evolved body parts designed to accept that protuberance. In addition, female mammals (except for a few monotremes) evolved a chamber in which to hold the developing embryo until it’s ready to face a potentially desiccating life on land. Equally important, both males and females evolved complementary behavioral patterns that allow them to court and mate successfully. Frankly, it doesn’t make any difference if you’ve got the external body parts but you don’t know how to use them. (Get my drift?)

That’s why terrestrial mammals can’t change sex like fish. Doing so would require females to magically sprout some kind of tube to deliver sperm internally, and males would have to spontaneously develop a complementary orifice. In addition — and more importantly — males and females would have to develop all the necessary internal ‘plumbing’ and mating behaviors necessary to operate their new equipment. So, a mammalian sex change requires more than altering the external structures. That’s the easy part. It can be done surgically, even on your pets.

Becoming a male terrestrial animal would require developing a complex duct system linking the gonads to that new, external tube, and internal glands to secrete a carrying fluid and nutrients for the sperm (i.e., the Wolffian duct system, prostate, and bulbourethral glands). Becoming a female would require developing some kind of internal tube that would catch the eggs when they’re released into the abdominal cavity, hold them until they meet some sperm, and house the developing embryo (i.e., the derivatives of the Müllerian duct system).

Obviously, none of this could happen. When it comes to mammals, the die is cast prenatally. In other words, whatever fish do is their business. It has no grand implications for terrestrial mammals. So, let’s drop the clown fish and Asian sheepshead wrasse analogies. Anybody who brings them up simply doesn’t understand evolutionary or developmental biology. It’s not worth the debate unless, of course, you’re one of those people who thinks that because some animals are parthenogenic, we should simply stop having sex altogether and hope for the best.

I also want to clear up two more points. The first is sort of minor. It has to do with the large gamete/small gamete dichotomy between male and female animals: Females produce large gametes; males produce small gametes. This is frequently cited as evidence that there are just two sexes, easily differentiated by gamete size. Although generally true, I want to point out (yet again) that there are always exceptions in biology. Unfortunately, those exceptions are often the fuel that ignites these recalcitrant debates about sex when someone ‘discovers’ the exception and then claims it to be a new, profound revelation upending all prior knowledge. The odd exception to which I’m referring here is the colossal size of the fruit fly sperm. You probably didn’t know — few people do — that the tiny fruit fly, Drosophila bifurca, produces sperm that are 58 mm (~2.25 inches) long. That’s about 20 times longer than its entire body and over 300 times longer than a female’s egg is wide. In fact, these sperm are thought to be the longest sperm of any animal on the planet. So, I’m sure that at some point, someone will use this fact to argue against the large gamete/small gamete dichotomy between the sexes. It will be a silly argument, of course. I just want you to be forewarned.

The second point has to do with reptile sex determination. I have heard this phenomenon described inaccurately by people on both sides of the sex binary debate. It comes up almost as frequently as the clown fish analogy. Frankly, it’s a bit misleading to the lay reader to say that turtle (or alligator) sex is ‘determined’ by temperature. Although this is the common way it’s phrased in the biological literature, it should be made clear that sexual development in reptiles and amphibians is a product of the same types of genetic and physiological processes that operate in other animals. Saying that reptile sex is ‘determined’ by temperature makes it sound like the whole process is much more capricious than it is. While “a narrow range of incubation temperatures during a thermosensitive period of embryonic development” can affect the underlying genetic, physiological, and biochemical processes in ways that alter the sex ratios (i.e., the relative numbers of males and females) in a cohort, the most proximate causes leading to a turtle or alligator being male or female are physiological. In the end, it’s all genes, hormones, and molecules just like it is in other animals. And, the ultimate developmental outcome is binary.

The take-home message

So, here’s the upshot: You should just be you… and I’ll just be Frederick. We don’t need to ask flies, fish, or turtles for permission to be what we are, or what we hope to be… they’ve got their own problems to deal with. Capisci?

Epilogue

As I said in the previous essay, I have a deep understanding of, and great compassion for those people — which includes me — who don’t match the accepted stereotypes of any particular category or group. Over the years, I have been the target of what seemed to be an unrelenting stream of criticism for the fact that I was never (and still am not) perceived as representative of the norm (whatever that is). Consequently, I grew up defending those who were similarly targeted, and I believe that each of us should be continually mindful and accepting of the rich diversity of the human condition. Each of us should actively and consciously strive to be as compassionate, accepting, supportive and inclusive as we can. Denigrating, harassing or bullying anyone for any reason is reprehensible and unacceptable as far as I am concerned.

However, being open, kind, and accepting does not necessitate abandoning reason, turning our backs on biology, or unhinging ourselves from reality. Nor does it require us to entertain the arguments of those who do.

[eonars]

Been at nonstop lectures on mammalian female fertility and human female cyclicity and oocyte quality and increased risk of aneuploidy past a certain age and etc etc etc since Monday morning I'm here til Friday and I feel like I've just erased all the positive thoughts I'd scraped together about turning 30 in March just by being here 😭 I think I would want a baby someday but I'm surely some kind of unholy combo of ugly and unlovable and annoying bc despite 30 in March I've only ever really dated someone once and it was miserable and he thought I was annoying and weird. So I probably still have a lot of time left to waste with someone who doesn't like me or treats me bad because I'm naive and dumb and I'm being even more naive and dumb thinking I'll have enough time to get into a situation where a baby would be feasible or possible or a good idea. I'm gonna be pushing 40 still getting left on read and ghosted and the really visible pity I get from everyone around me who has someone already will be even more obvious. There's very obviously Something up with me that I've never been properly approached or organically met anyone or even gotten asked for my number or something and I don't even know what the something is so I can change it 😰 and the ones I've so desperately chased after cause I'm so stupid and full of wishful thinking have left my sense of self utterly cooked and left so much damage in their wake that now I'm coming up to the age my mom was when she had me and while I have everything else anyone could ever want I have my dream job and amazing friends and a fun interesting life I'm missing this ONE thing and have been missing it forever and will never have it so obviously it consumes me. And everyone around me can tell and treats me with these bizarre pity kid gloves but it's also like yeah no shit.....look at her...I'm surrounded by veterinarians and reproductive scientists and cell biologists here who all have tons of experience in reproductive biotechnology and I tell them I'm a fish biologist with no reproduction background I have my degrees in zoology and ecology I worked min wage before coming here to do this yeah I live alone no I've never used this protocol for preservation of genetic material before yeah its all brand new to me I previously worked in fish behavior and neurophysiology strictly and it's all pity pity pity pity

[sproutystudies]

Polyploidy

Hello, hello! Since my study species, cultivated strawberry, is a polyploid organism, my first educational post is on polyploidy.

While most animals are diploid, meaning that they have two sets of chromosomes, it is common for plants to have additional sets of chromosomes. When an organism has more than two complete sets of chromosomes, this is known as polyploidy. This can be contrasted to aneuploidy, which is when an organism has a loss or gain in chromosomes that results in one or more set being incomplete.

There are two main types of polyploids. Autopolyploids arise from genome duplication within a single organism or species (Lloyd & Bomblies, 2016). This can either occur from spontaneous whole genome duplication due to endoreduplication (mitotic failure) or from self fertilization following meiotic error. During mitotic failure, the genome is doubled in preparation for cell division but the cell fails to divide (Shu et al, 2018). During meiotic error, chromosome sets fail to segregate, leading to formation of an unreduced gamete (Spoelhof et al, 2017). Autopolyploids have increased vigor due to larger nucleus size and greater protection from recessive deleterious mutations, but they do not gain different genetic information like in allopolyploids.

Allopolyploids arise from hybridization between two closely related species (Lloyd & Bomblies, 2016). There can be variation in the steps to allopolyploid formation. Notably, an allopolyploid arising from genome duplication of a sterile hybrid can be called an amphidiploid, and an allopolyploid arising from two polyploid parents can be called an amphipolyploid. Allopolyploids have increased vigor for the same reasons as autopolyploids but also have the advantage of new alleles being introduced. As alleles on some chromosomes are lost or silenced over time, favorable alleles can be conserved through natural or artificial selection. The various advantages conferred by allopolyploidy are together known as hybrid vigor.

Cultivated strawberry is an allo-octoploid, meaning it has eight sets of chromosomes with variation in their species of origin. These chromosomes diploidize to form four sub-genomes, known as sub-genome A-D. This means that most genes exist in quadruplicate. A gene in one sub-genome is known as a homeologue of its counterparts in other sub-genomes. The term homeologue is derived from the term homologue, which refers to genes with a shared origin.

Cultivated strawberry is also an amphipolyploid, as it arose from hybridization of two octoploid parents (Edger et al, 2019). Each of these parents originated from four diploid progenitors (Edger et al, 2019). These progenitors are believed to be F. iinumae, F. nipponica, F. vesca, and F. viridis (Edger et al, 2019). The genomes of each of these progenitors form the sub-genomes of the octoploids.

Figures in this post are from Hegarty & Hiscock, 2008. The strawb picture is my own.

Important Terms: polyploidy, aneuploidy, autopolyploid, allopolyploid, endoreduplication, unreduced gametes, alleles, homeologues, hybrid vigor

When the Winter quarter starts I plan to make these educational posts a weekly thing, largely to help prepare for my qualifying exam, but hopefully they will be useful to others as well. If there are topics related to my studies that are particularly interesting to anyone, feel free to reach out so I can prioritize them :)

[vampacidic]

talking about aneuploidy in bio. talking about down syndrome. anywya. obsessed w the girl who then went 'what about asperger's? is that a trisomy?'

[madamepestilence]

this is the absolute dumbest proposal ive ever seen

first of all, this counts as sexual discrimination, and is therefore illegal in the United States and unenforceable for employees under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (and this extends to businesses with less than 15 employees in several states, and it has also been held up in both federal courts and agencies that this extends to discrimination regarding someone's sexual orientation or gender identity, as this is based on their sex), and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also holds that this applies to customers

secondly, these head-to-toe examinations would require sexual harassment (also protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964), as it would require customers to strip for full examination, and this would also require licensed medical professionals (a Primary Care Provider who is a doctor, nurse practitioner, or a physical assistant) to be on staff, which has a range of $166,505 - $231,609 annually

thirdly, fucking nobody is going to wait 2-4 months for a DNA analysis in a laboratory (that customers have no guarantee of being a real laboratory, not to mention would require them to sign waivers giving the laboratory permission to view their medical documents and medical history) just to have a drink

fourth, sex is a lot more complicated than "46,XX girl, 46,XY boy" - the Association for X and Y Chromosome variations openly tells people about the trisomy (47,XXY ; 47,XXX ; 47,XYY), tetrasomy (48,XXYY ; 48,XXXY ; 48,XXXX), and pentasomy (49,XXXXY ; 49,XXXXX) combinations, as well as Turner Syndrome (45,X), and that 20% of people with sex chromosome aneuploidy have mosaicism (two or more cell lines with different genetic signatures), of which they provide the example combinations of 46,XY/47,XXY and 45,X/47,XXX - and there are also 46,XX gonadal dysgenesis, 46,XY gonadal dysgenesis, and 46,XX male syndrome, and this isn't even taking into account chromosome malformations and chimeras who absorb their twin, nor the fact that sex is not entirely dependent on chromosomes and also varies with genital development and hormones, and this also ignores the fact that human bodies produce more testosterone than estrogen, and that the body literally converts testosterone into estrogen if it has too much testosterone or can't make use of it (which is why you can develop gynecomastia from taking testosterone supplements) - and this would require a genetic profile test, which ranges from $1,000 - $2,500

the whole x-rays thing is absolutely batshit, because the size of someone's hips and shoulderblades doesn't actually accurately determine someone's sex, and has a lot of variation in humans, not to mention this ignores the presence of medical disorders that may cause different bone development like dwarfism or scoliosis putting different pressures on the spinal cord that leads to abnormal bone fusing, and the bar would have to sink $35,000 - $200,000+ to purchase an x-ray machine, and they would need a licensed radiologist for accurate x-ray reading, who would have a salary of $386,090 - $513,690

so, yea, good look making a scientifically unsound bar that violates employment and sexual harassment law, needs at least 2-4 months before you even receive your first customers, costs $200,000 to start (not even including building prices), and sinks a loss of roughly $745,500 annually, not including building costs, and assuming you only have one customer to afford a genetic profile test for

Many of you might be unaware but if you’re a transphobe there’s a 98.7% chance that your brain is replaced with mushy peas within the first five years.

[bpod-bpod]

Miscounting Chromosomes

Egg cells or oocytes have unique characteristics that make them different from other cells. One of the main differences is the number of chromosomes – condensed structures of DNA. Most human cells have 46 – 23 pairs – but eggs (and sperm) have only 23. This number is critical because any more or less can lead to infertility and miscarriages. These errors occur during meiosis; specialised cell division that generates egg cells, and these errors become more common as women age, but we didn’t know why. By imaging oocytes from younger women (left) and older women (right), researchers have found that a protein called Sgo 2 (green) is vital to helping the chromosome pairs to line up correctly before being pulled apart by microtubules (orange). In older women, Sgo2 doesn’t localise to the right locations meaning that the chromosomes are not lined up correctly for the big divide, increasing the chances of older eggs not meeting that magic number of chromosomes.

Written by Sophie Arthur

Image from work by Bettina P Mihalas and colleagues

The Wellcome Centre for Cell Biology, Institute of Cell Biology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in bioRxiv, January 2023 (not peer reviewed)

You can also follow BPoD on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

[whatisinfertility]

The Latest Advancements in Fertility Treatments

Advancements in fertility treatments have significantly enhanced the prospects for couples facing infertility. At Lakshmi Fertility Centre in Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu, we are committed to providing state-of-the-art solutions to help individuals and couples achieve their dreams of parenthood. In this article, we explore the latest breakthroughs in fertility treatments that are shaping the future of reproductive medicine.

Fertility Treatments

1. Genetic Screening and Preimplantation Genetic Testing (PGT)

Preimplantation Genetic Testing (PGT) is a pivotal advancement in fertility treatments. This screening process allows for the assessment of embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) for chromosomal conditions and genetic disorders.

 By selecting the healthiest embryos for transfer, PGT increases the likelihood of a successful pregnancy and reduces the risk of miscarriage or inherited diseases.

2. Egg Freezing for Fertility Preservation

Egg freezing, or oocyte cryopreservation, allows women to preserve their fertility for future use.

 Whether due to career choices, medical conditions, or a desire to delay childbirth, egg freezing allows women to store their eggs at a younger, healthier age.

Advancements in freezing techniques, such as vitrification, have significantly improved success rates, providing women with greater control over their reproductive timelines.

3. In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) with Genetic Testing

Integrating genetic testing into the IVF process has revolutionized fertility treatments. Techniques like Preimplantation Genetic Testing for Aneuploidy (PGT-A) enable the identification of chromosomal abnormalities in embryos before implantation.

 This approach enhances the chances of a healthy pregnancy by selecting embryos with the correct number of chromosomes, thereby reducing the risk of miscarriage and increasing the likelihood of live birth.

4. Stem Cell Therapy for Egg and Sperm Production

Stem cell therapy represents a groundbreaking development in fertility treatments. 

Researchers are exploring the use of stem cells to generate viable eggs and sperm, offering potential solutions for individuals who are unable to produce their own due to medical conditions or treatments like chemotherapy.

 While still in the experimental stages, this research holds immense promise for the future of reproductive medicine.

5. Artificial Intelligence (AI) in IVF

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly playing a crucial role in fertility treatments.

 AI algorithms are utilized to analyze large datasets, improving embryo selection and predicting the success of IVF cycles.

 By providing personalized recommendations based on individual patient characteristics, AI enhances the accuracy and effectiveness of fertility treatments.

6. Embryo Glue for Implantation Support

Embryo Glue is a hyaluronan-enriched transfer medium used during the embryo transfer process in IVF.

 It mimics the natural uterine environment, enhancing the embryo's chances of implantation.

 Studies have shown that using Embryo Glue can improve pregnancy rates by supporting embryo attachment to the uterine lining.

7. Personalized Fertility Treatments with Personalized Medicine

Personalized medicine is transforming fertility treatments by tailoring approaches based on individual genetic information, hormone levels, and other personal factors.

This customized approach helps identify the most effective fertility treatments for each patient, improving success rates and reducing unnecessary procedures.

Conclusion: The Future of Fertility Treatments

The future of Fertility Treatments is filled with hope and possibilities. With ongoing research, technological advancements, and personalized approaches, couples struggling with infertility now have more options than ever before. At Lakshmi Fertility Centre in Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu, we are dedicated to providing the latest in fertility treatments, ensuring that each patient receives personalized, compassionate care. Whether you're considering IVF, genetic testing, or egg freezing, the advancements in reproductive technology are opening up new pathways for achieving a healthy pregnancy.

As these advancements continue to unfold, the journey to parenthood becomes more attainable, and the possibilities for those facing fertility challenges are expanding. We are committed to staying at the forefront of these advancements, providing hope and support to every couple that walks through our doors.

[dssima]

Enhancing FISH Diagnostics with DSS Image Tech Instruments

Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (FISH) is a pivotal technique in molecular diagnostics, enabling researchers and clinicians to identify genetic abnormalities with remarkable accuracy. DSS Image Tech, a leader in advanced diagnostic solutions, offers state-of-the-art instruments and reagents for FISH diagnostics, setting new standards in precision and efficiency.

What is FISH and Why is It Important?

FISH is a molecular cytogenetic technique used to detect and localize the presence or absence of specific DNA sequences on chromosomes. It plays a crucial role in:

Cancer Diagnostics: Identifying genetic markers linked to cancer progression.

Genetic Disorders: Detecting chromosomal abnormalities in prenatal and postnatal diagnostics.

Research Applications: Assisting in studies of gene mapping and structural variations.

DSS Image Tech’s Innovative FISH Instruments

DSS Image Tech offers cutting-edge tools designed to enhance the precision of FISH diagnostics. Key features include:

High Sensitivity and Accuracy: DSS instruments ensure precise hybridization, minimizing errors.

Automated Workflow: Simplified processes increase throughput and reduce manual intervention.

User-Friendly Interface: Designed for ease of use, making complex diagnostics accessible.

These instruments cater to laboratories of all scales, ensuring that professionals have reliable tools to deliver accurate results.

FISH Reagents by DSS Image Tech

In addition to instruments, DSS provides a comprehensive range of FISH reagents, ensuring compatibility and consistent performance. Their reagents:

Offer superior signal-to-noise ratios.

Enable reproducible results across diverse sample types.

Meet rigorous quality standards for clinical and research applications.

Advantages of DSS FISH Solutions

Time-Efficient Diagnostics: Streamlined processes allow for faster turnaround times.

Cost-Effectiveness: Optimized resource utilization reduces operational costs.

Wide Applications: From oncology to genetic counseling, DSS solutions support various diagnostic needs.

Applications in Clinical and Research Settings

DSS FISH diagnostics empower professionals in:

Oncology: Identifying HER2 amplifications or ALK rearrangements in tumors.

Prenatal Screening: Detecting aneuploidies like trisomy 21.

Genetic Counseling: Providing actionable insights for inherited conditions.

Why Choose DSS Image Tech?

With a commitment to innovation, DSS Image Tech combines expertise and technology to revolutionize diagnostics. Their focus on quality, precision, and customer support makes them a trusted partner in molecular diagnostics.

Conclusion

Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (FISH) continues to transform diagnostics, and DSS Image Tech remains at the forefront of this evolution. By offering advanced instruments and high-quality reagents, DSS empowers laboratories to achieve precision in genetic analysis.

[culturesingularity]

So then... what kinds of sex chromosome aneuploidies do they have?? Ay yi yi

What the fuck

[geneticteacher123]

Polyploidy are a multiples of haploid chromosomes, while Aneuploidy are abnormal chromosomes numbers #geneticteacher

[idealfertilityivf]

Prenatal screening offers a comprehensive approach to assessing the health of both mother and baby during pregnancy. Our First Trimester Screening for Aneuploidy combines biochemical markers, maternal age, and fetal nuchal translucency (NT) measurements to detect trisomies 21, 18, and 13. With NIPT (Non-invasive Prenatal Testing) offering advanced genetic insights through cell-free fetal DNA, expectant mothers can benefit from early, non-invasive detection. For further accuracy, our Second Trimester Screening and Targeted Imaging provide in-depth anomaly scans. We prioritize both your peace of mind and your baby’s well-being.

For more information, visit - https://idealfertility.com/services/prenatal-screening/

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Colin Wright

Published: Feb 8, 2024

Biology is under siege from activists trying to undermine our long-established, universal understanding of what constitutes male and female organisms. These are not merely cloistered academic debates; this ideologically motivated pseudoscience is having a profound impact on society. It affects the existence of female-only spaces such as bathrooms, dressing rooms, rape shelters, and jails/prisons, as well as the safety and fairness of female-only sports leagues and events. It also shapes the debate over “gender-affirming care,” which seeks to alter the bodies of sex-nonconforming children so that their physical features align with their self-proclaimed “gender identity.”

Biological science, however, is firmly on the side of the sex realists. The setbacks this side has experienced in recent years owe not to the weakness of its arguments but to the climate of fear pervading academia, which silences dissent. Those who challenge gender ideology’s prevailing narrative—namely, that biological sex is a social construct or exists on a spectrum—are often targeted, harassed, and publicly branded as “transphobic” bigots. Proponents of gender ideology understand that the biggest threat to their movement is open and honest debate. This is why, for the past five years, I have dedicated myself to educating the public on this topic, and openly engaging with gender ideologues whenever possible.

Last month, such an opportunity presented itself. Ian Copeland, who describes himself as a “Ph.D.-level geneticist,” though he has not published any peer-reviewed scientific work, announced that he would host an event on X Spaces to defend the view that “sex is not binary.” Copeland made this announcement after posting various misleading statements about sex biology on X. For instance, he asserted that “Sex (like all traits) is not binary” and that “All traits are on a spectrum.” He seemed to think that a BBC Earth article discussing the sex-changing abilities of a species of fish, the Asian sheepshead wrasse (Semicossyphus reticulatus), supported his claims. He also stated that “sex is a genotype classification,” arguing that the existence of sex chromosome aneuploidies (atypical combinations of sex chromosomes other than XX and XY) proves the nonbinary nature of biological sex.

The X Spaces event, titled “Bring the Facts: Sex Is Not Binary, Sorry to Burst Your Bubble . . . ,” was scheduled for January 19 at 3:45 p.m. I joined the moment that it opened to request a speaking slot, ensuring I was not far back in the queue. My promptness paid off: I was the first to address Copeland’s deep misunderstandings about the biology of sex.

My primary goal in public debates like these is not necessarily to convince my opponents of their error, though such an outcome would be welcome. Rather, my aim is to demonstrate to the audience what honest truth-seeking sounds like by presenting my arguments as honestly, clearly, and calmly as possible. I believe that observing the stark contrast between a genuine academic and a radical activist can be a powerful means of persuading the openminded.

I began the debate by explaining the biological perspective on why “sex is binary,” and what this phrase signifies. In essence, “sex is binary” refers to there being only two sexes, which are defined by the type of gamete an organism has the function to produce. Males have the function of producing sperm, and females, ova. Sex ambiguity (that is, “intersex” conditions) does not constitute a third sex, as these conditions do not lead to the production of a third type of gamete.

Copeland did not dispute any of this. Yet he insisted that “genetic sex” is not binary, citing the existence of other sex chromosome compositions beyond XX (female) and XY (male), such as X0 (Turner syndrome), XXX (Triple X syndrome), XXY (Klinefelter syndrome), XYY (Jakobs syndrome), and so on. He claimed that if an organism’s “genetic sex” is defined by their sex-chromosome composition, then there must be more than two sexes.

This argument, seemingly logical on its face, stems from a common yet fundamental misunderstanding of what sex is and what geneticists mean by “genetic sex.”

Put plainly, “genetic sex” is a misnomer. While the term is frequently used in medical and scientific papers, government health websites, medical centers, and even by popular human-ancestry companies like 23andMe, “genetic sex” is not a distinct type of sex at all; it is a convenient term or shorthand to denote that a person or cell contains the sex chromosomes that typically cause a male or female to develop. For a geneticist, knowing this about a cell or cell culture might be useful if he is investigating sex differences or wants to control for cellular sex differences as a potential confound in an experiment. Medical professionals often describe sex in multifaceted terms because examining a person’s chromosomes, hormones, genitals, and gonads, and their alignment, aids in diagnosing potential issues along this biological chain. For example, if you’re a male suddenly stricken with abnormally low testosterone, this may be indicative of hypothalamic or pituitary abnormalities, or even testicular cancer. Conversely, abnormally high testosterone in females may by indicative of ovarian cysts. The use of terms like “genetic sex,” “hormonal sex,” and “genital sex,” is driven by practicality, not because they represent legitimate, separate types of sex.

“Genetic sex” is not an alternative type of sex. “Sex” refers only to the type of gamete an organism has the function to produce. This becomes obvious when we look at other animals, such as turtles, that do not use chromosomes to guide their sex development. The sex of green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) is determined by temperature. Eggs incubated below 27.7°C develop into males, and eggs incubated above 31°C develop into females.

Discussing humans as having a “genetic sex” that’s equivalent to their sex based on gametes is as illogical as referring to turtles as having a “temperature sex” distinct from their actual sex. We may use terms like “male temperatures” for those under 28°C and “female temperatures” for those over 31°C as shorthand for “temperatures that typically lead to male or female development,” but there’s nothing inherently “male” or “female” about these temperatures. A turtle’s sex is ultimately defined by the gamete it has the function to produce, not the temperature of its early days in the egg. For instance, if a female turtle popped out of an incubator set below 28°C, we wouldn’t say that she has a female “gametic sex” and a male “temperature sex.” She would simply be female, and the researchers would likely be intrigued to learn how she developed at a temperature typically associated with male development.

In a similar vein is the Blue Groper (Achoerodus viridis), a fish species characterized by blue males and brown females. In the field, it may be useful for researchers to use color as a quick and accurate proxy when recording a fish’s sex. But it would be incorrect to claim that Blue Gropers have a “color sex,” as there is nothing inherently “male” about being blue or “female” about being brown. Being male or female causes color dimorphism in Blue Gropers, not the other way around. 

Chromosomes in humans and color in fish can serve as operational definitions of sex, but they are neither the essence of sex nor an alternative type of sex. The association of Y chromosomes with human males and the link between color and sex in Blue Gropers are known precisely because sex is a trait distinct from chromosomes or color.

The philosopher of science Paul E. Griffiths makes the same point in a 2021 paper titled “What Are Biological Sexes?”

Biologists know which chromosome pairs are “male” or “female” because they know which animals are male or female, using the gametic definition. . . . The same problem defeats any attempt to define sex in terms of phenotypic characters. . . . Something gets to be a “male” or “female” characteristic in a particular species because it is common in males or females in that species: sexual characteristics are defined by sexes, not the other way around. Like chromosomal definitions of sex, phenotypic definitions are not really “definitions”—they are operational criteria for sex determination underpinned by the gametic definition of sex and valid only for one species or group of species.

This is the fundamental point that Copeland and many others who use the term “genetic sex” fail to grasp. “Genetic sex” is nonsensical because it requires the primacy of the gametic definition of sex.

Despite my efforts to guide Copeland through this logical reasoning, he ultimately refused to acknowledge it. His only defense was that certain medical bodies use the term “genetic sex,” so it must be legitimate. However, this is simply an argument from authority. Furthermore, the popularity of a term is irrelevant to the truth. My reference to Griffiths above is not to counter Copeland’s authority with another authority; that’s not how science operates. Anyone can find a peer-reviewed scientific paper, or a Ph.D. holder, to support his desired beliefs. Instead, we must make arguments and cite sources rooted in evidence and that make the most logical sense.

The prevalence of the term “genetic sex” among scientists, medical organizations, and in genetics textbooks does not establish its validity as a type of sex on par with the gametic definition. I hope this helps put the “genetic sex” myth to rest.

[partyinthecloudkingdom]

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