BACKGROUND Over the last decade a number of species, from farm animals to rodents, have been cloned using somatic cell nuclear transfer technology (SCNT). This technique has the potential to revolutionize the way that genetically modified animals are made. In its current state, the process of SCNT is very inefficient (<5% success rate), with several technical and biological hurdles hindering de...

Abstract The cloning between different animals known as interspecific somatic cell nuclear transfer (iSCNT) was carried out for endangered species. iSCNT has been characterized by a poor success rate due to several factors that influence the formation of SCNT in various cytoplasms. cycle transferred cell, passage number cultured mitochondria oocytes, and their capabilities are among these facto...

Many of the developmental anomalies observed in cloned animals are related to fetal and placental overgrowth, a phenomenon known as the “large offspring syndrome” (LOS) in ruminants. It has been hypothesized that the epigenetic control of imprinted genes, i.e. genes that are expressed in a parental-specific manner, is at the root of LOS. Our recent research has focused on understanding the epig...

BACKGROUND Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is a promising technique to produce transgenic cloned mammalian, including transgenic goats which may produce Human Lactoferrin (hLF). However, success percentage of SCNT is low, because of gestational and neonatal failure of transgenic embryos. According to the studies on cattle and mice, DNA methylation of some imprinted genes, which plays a vit...

The somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) technique is the most popular method for producing genetically modified pigs, but its efficiency depends upon a number of factors. In the present study, we attempted to generate transgenically cloned Guangxi Bama mini-pigs--which possess great potential for modeling human diseases--through genetic modification of fibroblasts, followed by SCNT and embryo ...

Despite extensive efforts, low efficiency is still an issue in bovine somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). The hypothesis of our study was that the use of cytoplasts produced by chemically assisted enucleation (EN) would improve nuclear reprogramming in nuclear transfer (NT)-derived embryos because it results in lower damage and higher cytoplasm content than conventional EN. For that purpose, ...

Studies using animal models demonstrated the importance of autocrine/paracrine factors secreted by preimplantation embryos and reproductive tracts for embryonic development and implantation. Although in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer (IVF-ET) is an established procedure, there is no evidence that present culture conditions are optimal for human early embryonic development. In this study, k...

Animal cloning has been achieved in many species by transplanting differentiated cell nuclei to unfertilized oocytes. However, the low efficiencies of cloning have remained an unresolved issue. Here we find that the combination of two small molecules, trichostatin A (TSA) and vitamin C (VC), under culture condition with bovine serum albumin deionized by ion-exchange resins, dramatically improve...

Patient-specific pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) can be generated via nuclear reprogramming by transcription factors (i.e., induced pluripotent stem cells, iPSCs) or by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). However, abnormalities and preclinical application of differentiated cells generated by different reprogramming mechanisms have yet to be evaluated. Here we investigated the molecular and func...

BACKGROUND Pigs with SCID can be a useful model in regenerative medicine, xenotransplantation, and cancer cell transplantation studies. Utilizing genome editing technologies such as CRISPR/Cas9 system allows us to generate genetically engineered pigs at a higher efficiency. In this study, we report generation and phenotypic characterization of IL2RG knockout female pigs produced through combina...