title: Chimerism in piglets developed from aggregated cloned embryos.
abstract: Porcine chimeras are valuable in the study of pluripotency, embryogenesis and development. It would be meaningful to generate chimeric piglets from somatic cell nuclear transfer embryos. In this study, two cell lines expressing the fluorescent markers enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) and tdTomato were used as donor cells to produce reconstructed embryos. Chimeric embryos were generated by aggregating two EGFP-cell derived embryos with two tdTomato-cell derived embryos at the 4-cell stage, and embryo transfer was performed when the aggregated embryos developed into blastocysts. Live porcine chimeras were successfully born and chimerism was observed by their skin color, gene integration, microsatellite loci composition and fluorescent protein expression. The chimeric piglets were largely composed of EGFP-expressing cells, and this phenomenon was possibly due to the hyper-methylation of the promoter of the tdTomato gene. In addition, the expression levels of tumorigenicity-related genes were altered after tdTomato transfection in bladder cancer cells. The results show that chimeric pigs can be produced by aggregating cloned embryos and that the developmental capability of the cloned embryo in the subsequent chimeric development could be affected by the growth characteristics of its donor cell.
authors.affiliation: College of Life and Health Sciences Northeastern University Shenyang China; Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Embryo Engineering College of Animal Sciences Jilin University Changchun China.
authors.forename: Yongye
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Embryo Engineering College of Animal Sciences Jilin University Changchun China.
authors.forename: Zhanjun
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Embryo Engineering College of Animal Sciences Jilin University Changchun China.
authors.forename: Anfeng
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Embryo Engineering College of Animal Sciences Jilin University Changchun China.
authors.forename: Xiaolei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Embryo Engineering College of Animal Sciences Jilin University Changchun China.
authors.forename: Yuning
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Embryo Engineering College of Animal Sciences Jilin University Changchun China.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: College of Life and Health Sciences Northeastern University Shenyang China.
authors.forename: Tianye
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: College of Life and Health Sciences Northeastern University Shenyang China.
authors.forename: Bing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Embryo Engineering College of Animal Sciences Jilin University Changchun China.
authors.forename: Liangxue
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.affiliation: Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Embryo Engineering College of Animal Sciences Jilin University Changchun China.
authors.forename: Hongsheng
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ouyang
authors.affiliation: Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Embryo Engineering College of Animal Sciences Jilin University Changchun China.
authors.forename: Daxin
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pang
keywords: aggregation; chimerism; development; somatic cell nuclear transfer