Humster
Encyclopedia
A humster is a hybrid cell line made from hamster oocyte
fertilized with human sperm routinely created for mainly two reasons:
Somatic cell hybrids between hamster or mouse and man have been used for mapping of various traits at least since the 1970s.
Oocyte
An oocyte, ovocyte, or rarely ocyte, 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 the ovary during female gametogenesis. The female germ cells produce a primordial germ cell which undergoes a mitotic...
fertilized with human sperm routinely created for mainly two reasons:
- To avoid legal issues with working with pure human embryonic stem cellEmbryonic stem cellEmbryonic stem cells are pluripotent stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of the blastocyst, an early-stage embryo. Human embryos reach the blastocyst stage 4–5 days post fertilization, at which time they consist of 50–150 cells...
lines. - To assess the viability of human sperm for in vitro fertilization.
Somatic cell hybrids between hamster or mouse and man have been used for mapping of various traits at least since the 1970s.