Factors influencing the somatic cell nuclear transfer efficiency in pigs

Abstract

Using a data set from our laboratory, we assessed the effects of several factors on pig cloning efficiency. The results demonstrated that cells at high confluence (>90%) used as donor cell resulted in higher pregnancy rate, delivery rate and overall cloning efficiency (number of live offspring born per reconstructed embryo transferred to recipients) compared with the cells at 60% to 79% confluence and 80% to 89% confluence. Cells with four, five and six passages compromised the pregnancy and delivery rates compared with first passage cells. The number of blastocysts transferred by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) did not significantly affect the cloning efficiency, but transfer of blastocyst derived from in vitro culture 5 d after SCNT achieved a significantly higher pregnancy rate compared with one to two cell SCNT embryos from overnight culture. The highest pregnancy rate, delivery rate and the largest litter size were obtained when Bama Miniature pig fibroblasts were used as donor cells and Landrace/Yorkshire hybrid gilts were used as recipients. Recipients treated with chemicals for estrus synchronization had higher pregnancy rates compared with untreated recipients. Our data might be helpful for improving SCNT efficiency in pigs.

Keywords

blastocyst / donor cell / estrus synchronization / pregnancy rate / pig cloning / somatic cell nuclear transfer

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (30871408 and 31371487) and was partially supported by grants from the Sanming Project of Medicine in Shenzhen, the Fund for High Level Medical Discipline Construction of Shenzhen (2016031638), and the Shenzhen Foundation of Science and Technology (JCYJ20160229 204849975 and GCZX2015043017281705). The authors would like to thank all the members of both Dr. Rongfeng Li’s and the Jiangsu Key Laboratories of Xenotransplantation.Compliance with ethics guidelinesƒYong Jin, Manling Zhang, Xinrong Ju, Shuang Liang, Qiang Xiong, Lihua Zhao, Xiaowei Nie, Daorong Hou, Qiang Liu, Junzheng Wang, Chenyu Wang, Xiaokang Li, Lining Zhang, Xiaorui Liu, Ying Wang, Haiyuan Yang, Yifan Dai, and Rongfeng Li declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose.ƒAll applicable institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2018. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)