People sometimes fear what stem cells can do without realizing what some terms actually mean. Below is a simple explanation of Hybrid, Chimera, Clone, and Cybrid and what each word means.
Hybrid
The word hybrid is used in several different contexts — and not always correctly. Strictly speaking, a hybrid is an organism with genetic material from two other parents who are not genetically identical. All humans are effectively hybrids because each person carries genetic information from both parents (who, in turn, are hybrids of their parents).
Hybrids within a single species include humans, crops, and cat breeds or hybrids between species, such as the mule (a cross between a female horse and a male donkey) or a hinny (a cross between a male horse and a female donkey). Some people mistakenly refer to chimeras and cybrids as hybrids, but hybrids aren’t the same thing.
Chimera
In Greek mythology, the Chimera (KI-mer-uh or ki-MER-uh) was a fire-breathing lion whose tail was a serpent and had a goat’s head protruding from its back. In real life, chimeras are much cooler.
Chimeras cells can be descended from two sets of parents. The cells don’t mix their contents; cells in one part of the chimera’s body are from one group of parents, and cells in another part of the body are from a different group of parents. For example, scientists can fuse an embryo from a breed of black mouse with an embryo from a white mouse, and the baby mouse will have patches of black and white fur. The patches aren’t just different pigments; they have different DNA.
A Cool fact: people who have organ or bone marrow transplants can be thought of as chimeras because the donor cells have different DNA than the recipient.
Clone
Cloning effectively means copying. Thus, in real-life biology, the term clone refers to many different things, including (but not limited to) situations where two (or more) organisms are genetically identical. If you think about it, Identical human twins are clones because they have the same genetic makeup; identical twins are created when an early human embryo splits in two. Fraternal twins are not clones because they come from two separate zygotes; even though they share DNA from their parents, their genetic makeup isn’t identical.
Cybrid
Cybrids are called cytoplasmic hybrids — cells whose nucleus is from one source and cytoplasm from another source, such as Transplanting cytoplasm from one woman’s egg cells into another woman’s egg cell.
So when you think about it, Hybrid, Chimera, Clone, and Cybrid are nothing new.
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