Register      Login
Reproduction, Fertility and Development Reproduction, Fertility and Development Society
Vertebrate reproductive science and technology
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Production of transgenic porcine blastocysts by hand-made cloning

P. M. Kragh A C D , G. Vajta A , T. J. Corydon C , S. Purup B , L. Bolund C and H. Callesen A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Section of Reproductive Biology, Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics, Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark.

B Section for Metabolism, Growth and Lactation, Department of Animal Nutrition and Physiology, Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark.

C Department of Human Genetics, University of Aarhus, DK-8000 Aarhus, Denmark.

D To whom correspondence should be addressed. email: peterm.kragh@agrsci.dk

Reproduction, Fertility and Development 16(3) 315-318 https://doi.org/10.1071/RD04007
Submitted: 19 January 2004  Accepted: 2 March 2004   Published: 26 April 2004

Abstract

Recently, a zona-free technique for bovine somatic cell nuclear transfer (NT) with no requirement for micromanipulation (i.e. hand-made cloning (HMC)) has been described. The present study demonstrates the application of the HMC technique in the production of transgenic porcine blastocysts. In vitro-matured zona-free porcine oocytes were bisected manually using a microblade and halves containing no chromatin (i.e. the cytoplasts) were selected. Two cytoplasts were electrofused with one transgenic fibroblast expressing enhanced green fluorescent protein and reconstructed embryos were activated in calcium ionophore (A23187) followed by 6-dimethylaminopurine. Subsequently, embryos were cultured in NCSU-23 medium supplemented with 4 mg mL–1 bovine serum albumin for 7 days. In five replicates, 93.0 ± 7.0% (mean ± s.e.m.) of attempted reconstructed embryos fused and survived activation (31/31, 15/23, 28/28, 37/37 and 28/28). On Day 7 after activation, the respective blastocyst rates (per successfully reconstructed embryos) were 6% (2/31), 7% (1/15), 7% (2/28), 3% (1/37) and 7% (2/28), resulting in an average of 6.0 ± 0.8%. Enhanced green fluorescent protein was expressed in all cells of all eight developing blastocysts. Efforts are now directed towards the production of offspring from such transgenic NT blastocysts.


Acknowledgments

The authors thank Anette M. Pedersen, Klaus Villemoes, Ruth Kristensen, Anette K. Nielsen and Tina F. Hindkjaer for their excellent technical assistance.


References

Bartels, P. , Joubert, J. , de la Rey, M. , Treadwell, R. , Callesen, H. , and Vajta, G. (2004). Birth of Africa’s first nuclear transferred animal produced with handmade cloning (HMC). Reprod. Fertil. Dev. 16, 136.[Abstract]
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |

Booth, P. J. , Tan, S. J. , Reipurth, R. , Holm, P. , and Callesen, H. (2001a). Simplification of bovine somatic cell nuclear transfer by application of a zona-free manipulation technique. Cloning Stem Cells 3, 139–150.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | PubMed |

Booth, P. J. , Tan, S. J. , Holm, P. , and Callesen, H. (2001b). Application of the zona-free manipulation technique to porcine somatic nuclear transfer. Cloning Stem Cells 3, 191–197.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | PubMed |

Callesen, H. , Booth, P. J. , and Holm, P. (2000). Effect of oxygen concentration on pig embryo development in vitro.  Theriogenology 53, 290.


Dai, Y. , Vaught, T. D. , Boone, J. , Chen, S. H. , and Phelps, C. J. , et al. (2002). Targeted disruption of the alpha1,3-galactosyltransferase gene in cloned pigs. Nat. Biotechnol. 20, 251–255.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | PubMed |

Harrison, S. J. , Guidolin, A. , Faast, R. , Crocker, L. A. , Giannakis, C. , D’Apice, A. J. , Nottle, M. B. , and Lyons, I. (2002). Efficient generation of alpha(1,3) galactosyltransferase knockout porcine fetal fibroblasts for nuclear transfer. Transgenic Res. 11, 143–150.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | PubMed |

Lai, L. , Kolber-Simonds, D. , Park, K. W. , Cheong, H. T. , and Greenstein, J. L. , et al. (2002). Production of alpha-1,3-galactosyltransferase knockout pigs by nuclear transfer cloning. Science 295, 1089–1092.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | PubMed |

Lee, J. W. , Wu, S. C. , Tian, X. C. , Barber, M. , Hoagland, T. , Riesen, J. , Lee, K. H. , Tu, C. F. , Cheng, W. T. , and Yang, X. (2003). Production of cloned pigs by whole-cell intracytoplasmic microinjection. Biol. Reprod. 69, 995–1001.
PubMed |

Oback, B. , Wiersema, A. T. , Gaynor, P. , Laible, G. , and Tucker, F. C. , et al. (2003). Cloned cattle derived from a novel zona-free embryo reconstruction system. Cloning Stem Cells 5, 3–12.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | PubMed |

Peura, T. T. (2003). Improved in vitro development rates of sheep somatic nuclear transfer embryos by using a reverse-order zona-free cloning method. Cloning Stem Cells 5, 13–24.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | PubMed |

Peura, T. T. , Lewis, I. M. , and Trounson, A. O. (1998). The effect of recipient oocyte volume on nuclear transfer in cattle. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 50, 185–191.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | PubMed |

Phelps, C. J. , Koike, C. , Vaught, T. D. , Boone, J. , and Wells, K. D. , et al. (2003). Production of alpha 1,3-galactosyltransferase-deficient pigs. Science 299, 411–414.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | PubMed |

Reed, M. L. , and Petters, R. M. (1991). An evaluation of hamster, rat, and mouse sperm-cell motility in media formulated with water of different qualities. J. In Vitro Fert. Embryo Transf. 8, 41–47.
PubMed |

Tao, T. , Machaty, Z. , Boquest, A. C. , Day, B. N. , and Prather, R. S. (1999). Development of pig embryos reconstructed by microinjection of cultured fetal fibroblast cells into in vitro matured oocytes. Anim. Reprod. Sci. 56, 133–141.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | PubMed |

Tecirlioglu, R. T. , French, A. J. , Lewis, I. M. , Vajta, G. , Korfiatis, N. A. , Hall, V. J. , Ruddock, N. T. , Cooney, M. A. , and Trounson, A. O. (2003). Birth of a cloned calf derived from a vitrified hand-made cloned embryo. Reprod. Fertil. Dev. 15, 361–366.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |

Vajta, G. , Peura, T. T. , Holm, P. , Paldi, A. , Greve, T. , Trounson, A. O. , and Callesen, H. (2000). New method for culture of zona-included or zona-free embryos: the Well of the Well (WOW) system. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 55, 256–264.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | PubMed |

Vajta, G. , Lewis, I. M. , Hyttel, P. , Thouas, G. A. , and Trounson, A. O. (2001). Somatic cell cloning without micromanipulators. Cloning 3, 89–95.
Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | PubMed |

Vajta, G. , Lewis, I. M. , Trounson, A. O. , Purup, S. , Maddox-Hyttel, P. , Schmidt, M. , Pedersen, H. G. , Greve, T. , and Callesen, H. (2003). Handmade somatic cell cloning in cattle: analysis of factors contributing to high efficiency in vitro. Biol. Reprod. 68, 571–578.
PubMed |