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Vertebrate reproductive science and technology
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Increased pregnancy losses following serial somatic cell nuclear transfer in goats

Min Yang A , Iuri Perisse A , Zhiqiang Fan A , Misha Regouski A , Mirella Meyer-Ficca A and Irina A. Polejaeva A B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Department of Animal, Dairy and Veterinary Sciences, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322-4815, USA.

B Corresponding author. Email: irina.polejaeva@usu.edu

Reproduction, Fertility and Development 30(11) 1443-1453 https://doi.org/10.1071/RD17323
Submitted: 15 August 2017  Accepted: 9 April 2018   Published: 17 May 2018

Abstract

Serial cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is a critical tool for the expansion of precious transgenic lines or resetting the lifespan of primary transgenic cells for multiple genetic modifications. We successfully produced second-generation cloned goats using donor neonatal fibroblasts from first-generation clones. However, our attempts to produce any third-generation clones failed. SCNT efficiency decreased progressively with the clonal generations. The rate of pregnancy loss was significantly greater in recloning groups (P < 0.05). While no pregnancy loss was observed during the first round of SCNT, 14 out of 21 pregnancies aborted in the second round of SCNT and all pregnancies aborted in the third round of SCNT. In this retrospective study, we also investigated the expression of 21 developmentally important genes in muscle tissue of cloned (G1) and recloned (G2) offspring. The expression of most of these genes in live clones was found to be largely comparable to naturally reproduced control goats, but fibroblast growth factor 10 (FGF10), methyl CpG binding protein 2 (MECP2) and growth factor receptor bound protein 10 (GRB10) were differentially expressed (P < 0.05) in G2 goats compared with G1 and controls. To study the effects of serial cloning on DNA methylation, the methylation pattern of differentially methylated regions in imprinted genes H19 and insulin like growth factor 2 receptor (IGF2R) were also analysed. Aberrant H19 DNA methylation patterns were detected in G1 and G2 clones.

Additional keywords: DNA methylation, imprinted genes, serial cloning.


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