A humster is a
hybrid
Hybrid may refer to:
Science
* Hybrid (biology), an offspring resulting from cross-breeding
** Hybrid grape, grape varieties produced by cross-breeding two ''Vitis'' species
** Hybridity, the property of a hybrid plant which is a union of two diff ...
cell line
An immortalised cell line is a population of cells from a multicellular organism that would normally not proliferate indefinitely but, due to mutation, have evaded normal cellular senescence and instead can keep undergoing division. The cells ...
made from a
zona-free hamster
Hamsters are rodents (order Rodentia) belonging to the subfamily Cricetinae, which contains 19 species classified in seven genera. They have become established as popular small pets. The best-known species of hamster is the golden or Syrian ...
oocyte
An oocyte (, oöcyte, or ovocyte) is a female gametocyte or germ cell involved in reproduction. In other words, it is an immature ovum, or egg cell. An oocyte is produced in a female fetus in the ovary during female gametogenesis. The female ger ...
fertilized with human sperm. It always consists of single cells, and cannot form a multi-cellular being. Humsters are usually destroyed before they
divide into two cells; if isolated and left alone to divide, they would still be
unviable.
Humsters are routinely created mainly for two reasons:
* To avoid legal issues with working with pure human
embryonic stem cell
Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are Cell potency#Pluripotency, pluripotent stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of a blastocyst, an early-stage pre-Implantation (human embryo), implantation embryo. Human embryos reach the blastocyst stage 4†...
lines.
* To assess the viability of human sperm for
in vitro fertilization
In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a process of fertilisation in which an egg is combined with sperm in vitro ("in glass"). The process involves monitoring and stimulating the ovulatory process, then removing an ovum or ova (egg or eggs) from ...
Somatic cell hybrids between humans and hamsters or mice have been used for the mapping of various traits since at least the 1970s.
See also
*
Hamster zona-free ovum test
*
Human–animal hybrid
A human–animal hybrid and animal–human hybrid is an organism that incorporates elements from both humans and non-human animals. Technically, in a ''human–animal Hybrid (biology), hybrid'', each cell has both human and non-human genetic mate ...
*
Recombinant DNA
Recombinant DNA (rDNA) molecules are DNA molecules formed by laboratory methods of genetic recombination (such as molecular cloning) that bring together genetic material from multiple sources, creating sequences that would not otherwise be fo ...
References
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Further reading
Analysis of the first cell cycle in the cross between hamster eggs and human sperm
Cell biology
Bioethics
Mammal hybrids
Human hybrids
Intergeneric hybrids
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