Ok, this is convoluted, since I don’t think that you can transplant a testicle, or why you’d want to, but the subject came up at work…
So, would nthe children produced by such a testicle be your children genetically speaking, or the children of the new owner?
It depends. If the recipient still has one working testicle of his own, then his offspring would have roughly a 50% chance of being his, genetically. However, if the donated testicle is the only one the recipient has, then his offspring will be genetically the donor’s. The genetic makeup of the sperm cells is derived from the stem cells inside the testes.
Alright, I failed to mention this before, but a coworker has posted this to another message board as well. They want to know how you know, Q.E.D., and I tried telling them you just do, but they didn’t buy it… Sorry, but the honor of the SDMB is at stake:
Cite?
A key point in the process from here:
It’s important to note that if genetic information is not being passed to the testes by the bloodstream, it must come from the testicular tissue itself, and hence, from the donor.
Thanks, Q.E.D.!
I think Phil Donahue did a show about this around 25 years ago.
A guy who had two good testicles (and had already fathered some children) donated one testicle to his identical twin brother, who was sterile for some reason.
The transplant was successful, and the recipient subsequently fathered a child.
On a side note, it is important for sperm to remain isolated from the body’s immune system (in the blood stream). Occasionally, the body will mount a response against the sperm (which it sees as foreign) and will cause infertility.