Skip Navigation
8 comments

  • Beyond mice, researchers also examined blood samples from 100 patients — and uncovered autoantibodies targeting Xist-associated proteins that scientists hadn't previously linked to autoimmune disorders. A potential reason, Chang suggests: standard tests for autoimmunity were made using male cells.

    I'm am glad they decided to look at other samples. As a woman I find it extremely frustrating that science is still using male cells, testing standards, etc to diagnose and treat women.

    • If it helps, the HeLa cell line, very popular in scientific research, comes from an African American woman: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa

      I guess the reason for using only male cells in this case, might've been that if they're running the test either on a self-replicating cell line, or on a heavily inbred strain of lab mice, where both X chromosomes are supposed to be "practically identical" due to the inbreeding, while one of them gets inactivated in females, then running a test on cells with both X and Y chromosomes, would already include "all there was to see", with only half the work.

      It's interesting to see some advances in the understanding of the interaction of two X chromosomes, and how the result is not exactly the same as a single X.

      • The HeLa line had its own male-dominated issues, ie: denying her family a right to any money from the use of her genetics ... which, once rectified, led to a signing away of any rights for people who have an interest in helping advance scientific and medical knowledge and/or treatments.

        I know this because I was asked to become part of a study, but after reading the contract that clearly stated I (and my family/descendants) would be shut out of any and all financial compensation, I declined.

        While I agree with this if/when a government agency or university developes treatments or cures, I do not agree with it when the info is given freely to for-profit big pharma for them to make trillions from.

    • Male mouse cells no less. Of all the things we have to worry about, we gonna throw mouse sexism on the pile?

  • @Gaywallet This particular link wasn't opening for me. But what I have heard elsewhere is that there are indeed known to be a number of parts of the X chromosome which affect the immune system, in ways we are still in the process of figuring out.

    • It's an interesting article, and well exposed.

      It basically goes to say that the inactivation mechanism (Xist noncoding RNA strand) which gets triggered when there are two X chromosomes present in a cell, almost completely coats one of the X chromosomes, disabling it... but the result is not completely inert, still allowing the attachment of other partial strands, in weird combinations that can lead to an (auto)immune response.

8 comments