Prospect of creating trans-genic animals by using sper-matogonial transplantation

Transgenic animal technology is a powerful tool for researching bioscience, biomedicine, bioreactor, and ag- riculture. There are various ways to produce transgenic animals. The most common ways currently available are pronuclear microinjection and nuclear transfer techniques. However, these methods usually result in low efficiency, causing mosaic (in pronuclear microinjection), or develop- mental abnormalities (in nuclear transfer). In 1994, Brinster and his colleagues reported an original method to transfer spermatogonial stem cells from donor to recipient mice. The donor spermatogonia were able to form spermatozoa in re- cipient testes, and to produce progeny carrying the donor’s genetic characters. Since then, a series of novel methods were invented by using spermatogonia transplantation. These new methods facilitate the research and application of sper- matogonia. Some of these methods, when combining with genetic modification methods, will form a novel methodology for creating transgenic animals. The present paper reviews the achievements of research on spermatogonia transplanta- tion related to creating transgenic animal. Such as, trans- plantation techniques, cryopreservation of spermatogonia, preparation of recipients, long-term proliferation of sper- matogonia in culture, genetic modification of spermatogonia, and characterization of germ line transmission of the modi- fied gene, etc. Furthermore the methodologies for creating transgenic animals by using spermatogonia transplantation were described. Based on the difference between donors and recipients used, the methodology is categorized into two groups: allogeneic transplantation, and autologous trans- plantation. Although progress in this research area has been swift, potential difficulties remain to be overcome in each approach. The advantages and existing problems in the methodology are discussed.

Production of transgenic cashmere goat embryos expressing red fluorescent protein and containing IGF1 hair-follicle-cell specific expression cassette by somatic cell nuclear transfer

In the present study, cashmere goat fetal fibroblasts were transfected with pCDsR-KI, a hair-follicle-cell specific expression vector for insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) that contains two markers for selection (red fluorescent protein gene and neomycin resistant gene). The transgenic fibroblasts cell lines were obtained after G418 selection. Prior to the somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), the maturation rate of caprine cumulus oocytes complexes (COCs) was optimized to an in vitro maturation time of 18 h. Parthenogenetic ooctyes were used as a model to investigate the effect of two activation methods, one with calcium ionophore IA23187 plus 6-DMAP and the other with ethanol plus 6-DMAP. The cleavage rates after 48 h were respectively 88.7% and 86.4%, with no significant difference (P>0.05). There was no significant difference between the cleavage rate and the blastocyst rate in two different media (SO- Faa and CR1aa; 86.3% vs 83.9%, P>0.05 and 23.1% vs 17.2%,P>0.05). The fusion rate of a 190 V/mm group (62.4%) was significantly higher than 130 V/mm (32.8%) and 200 V/mm (42.9%), groups (P<0.05). After transgenic somatic cell nuclear transfer (TSCNT) manipulation, 203 reconstructed embryos were obtained in which the cleavage rate after in vitro development (IVD) for 48 h was 79.3% (161/203). The blastocyst rate after IVD for 7 to 9 d was 15.3% (31/203). There were 17 embryos out of 31 strongly ex- pressing red fluorescence. Two of the red fluorescent blastocysts were randomly selected to identify transgene by polymerase chain reaction. Both were positive. These results showed that: (i) RFP and Neor genes were correctly expressed indicating that transgenic somatic cell lines and positive trans- genic embryos were obtained; (ii) one more selection at the blastocyst stage was necessary although the donor cells were transgenic positive, because only partially transgenic embryos expressing red fluorescence were obtained; and (iii) through TSCNT manipulation and optimization, transgenic cash- mere goat embryos expressing red fluorescence and containing an IGF1 expression cassette were obtained, which was sufficient for production of transgenic cashmere goats.