

Sons' DNA remains in mothers' brains - VaedaStrike
http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-women-brain-microchimerism-20120926,0,6446716.story

======
stephengillie
One comment caught my attention:

 _This is just a PCR study. No evidence that the foreign human DNA even
entered host cells, much less that it was expressed. Probably shows only that
minute quantities of foreign human DNA can hang around a host body for a
while. Most likely explanation is that it gets bound up in the extracellular
matrix. Being that the DNA is of human origin, it would not trigger an immune
response, but rather, it would just be slowly degraded like the host's own DNA
when it is released from dead cells (part of the normal, perpetual turnover of
cells). DNA is hardy stuff; people have sequenced DNA from Neanderthal bones.

Study co-author J. Lee Nelson's comments are ridiculous hype. He should be
ashamed of himself. That those comments were published in this newspaper
uncritically is also an embarrassment.

This work was published in PLoS ONE. PLoS ONE articles are peer reviewed only
for the validity of the methods used, not for the importance of the subject
matter or the validity of the conclusions drawn. This is where you can publish
all sorts of meaningless crap. _

~~~
akozak
Good find. I was skeptical after reading the headline.

------
VaedaStrike
Ack! I posted speculative garbage. I feel dirty.

~~~
mey
Happens to the best of HN, why I enjoy the HN community and usually check the
comments before reading an article.

------
alexholehouse
Paperlink:
[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0045592)

