Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, September 29, 1995                   TAG: 9509290075
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MALCOLM RITTER ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium

BOY CAME FROM IMPATIENT EGG THAT DIDN'T WAIT FOR SPERM

First a man's sperm fertilizes a woman's egg, and then the egg starts to create an embryo, right?

Yes, usually. But now scientists say they have discovered the first known person to come from an egg that didn't wait for the sperm.

The boy has genetically female blood.

This was not an immaculate conception - the sperm did eventually arrive and fertilize the egg. And the finding does not suggest that an egg could produce a human without any fertilization at all, said researcher Dr. David Bonthron. Studies in other mammals suggest that cannot happen, he said.

Normally, sperm delivers a half-set of the father's genes to a half-set of the mother's genes in the egg. The combination gives the egg a full set.

The embryo begins forming when the egg divides into two cells, each of which divides into two more cells, and so on. Normally, the full set of genes is passed on to each cell.

But in the case of the boy, now 3, scientists believe the egg started dividing before the sperm showed up, said Bonthron of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

The details are not clear, but fertilization still occurred early in the embryo formation process, and perhaps even before the egg had completed its first splitting, Bonthron said.

The delayed fertilization meant that the father's genes did not reach all the cells in the boy's body, including those that make white blood cells. So the boy's white cells contain doubled copies of his mother's genes without any contribution from the father.

Skin cells from the boy, who was identified only as FD, contain the normal combination of his mother's and father's genes. So genetically, his body is a mix of abnormal and normal cells.

The boy has mild learning difficulties, and the left side of his face is smaller than the right side - traits that probably result from genetically abnormal cells, Bonthron said.

Bonthron, who reports the finding with colleagues in the October issue of the journal Nature Genetics, said he thinks it is rare for a human egg to start dividing before fertilization.

Azim Surani, a scientist who studies mammalian developmental genetics at Cambridge University, said Bonthron's theory about the child is reasonable. Surani said he knows of no previous such cases in humans.