In spite of those academic reservations and widespread public concern, a form of germline therapy has already been performed in New Jersey with little fanfare and no opportunity for public input. But worldwide, there have already been 30 babies born that have been created in this way. In fact the researchers had assumed mitochondrial defects in the eggs and corrected them by injecting egg cytoplasm containing presumed normal mitochondria. More importantly, they should be subject to the same public scrutiny if they raise the same ethical questions as the traditional germline interventions. Another caveat is that federal funds were not used in the ooplasmic transfer experiment, and RAC guidelines are binding only on those who receive federal funding.
Genetic recombination involves both gene exchange on a chromosome and re-assortment of chromosomes.
When new mitochondrial DNA was introduced in ooplasm, the eggs produced were, strictly speaking, made recombinant as the result of an artificial recombinant DNA technology. The claim that the experiment falls outside RAC purview is therefore spurious. Each mtDNA molecule contains 13 protein-encoding genes and 24 RNA genes that allow protein synthesis to take place inside the mitochondria. The proteins synthesised from the 13 mtDNA genes interact with more than 60 nuclear-encoded proteins to form the mitochondrial respiratory chain. The respiratory chain is responsible for extracting energy from metabolic products of glucose that powers all living activities.