Postnatal development of parthenogenetic—fertilized mouse aggregation chimeras

Chimeras were made from parthenogenetic and fertilized cleavage-stage mouse embryos. The perinatal mortality was high. The parthenogenetic contributions to different tissues at birth ranged from 0 to 50%. No selection of parthenogenetic cells was observed in the pigmentation of the coat, but this does not exclude that such selection could act in other tissues. The weight of chimeras at birth negatively correlated to the average contribution of the parthenogenetic part. The growth rate of chimeras was lower than that of nonchimeric animals. The data presented demonstrate that, although parthenogenetic cells are not cell lethals and they can participate to some degree in normal development of most tissues, their extensive presence reduces the viability of chimeras and retards the postnatal development.