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Three little pigs worth the huff and puff?

Nature Biotechnology volume 18, pages 1144–1145 (2000)Cite this article

Cloning pigs by nuclear transfer has been–and continues to be–a significant challenge. A major difficulty has been that assisted reproductive technologies representing key steps in the nuclear transfer process (e.g., in vitro oocyte maturation, oocyte activation, and embryo culture) are not as well developed in pigs as in other species. In addition, the female pig uniquely requires multiple viable fetuses to maintain pregnancy. Recently, three reports1,2,3 have employed variations on cloning methods to overcome these problems. A comparison of these different approaches provides clues for improving the efficiency of nuclear transfer in pigs and other recalcitrant animals. (Table 1.)

Table 1 Comparison of successful pig cloning procedures
Full size table

Methods for nuclear transplantation involve several key steps, each of which provide targets for optimizing the efficiency of animal cloning. These include (1) acquisition of mature ova (2) removal of the chromosomes contained within the ova (enucleation), (3) transfer of cell nuclei obtained from the animal to be cloned into enucleated ova, (4) activation of the newly formed oocyte to initiate embryonic development, (5) embryo culture in vitro, and (6) transfer of the cloned embryo into a surrogate mother. Variations on this basic approach have been used by all three groups1,2,3 that have now successfully cloned pigs.

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References

  1. Pokjaeva, I. A., et al. Cloned pigs produced by nuclear transfer from adult somatic cells . Nature 407, 86–90 (2000).

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  2. Onishi, A., et al. Pig cloning by microinjection of fetal fibroblast nuclei. Science 289, 1188–1190 ( 2000).

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  5. Wakayama, T. et al. Full-term development of mice from enucleated oofytes injected with cumulus cell nuclei. Nature 394, 369– 374 (1998).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology ,

    Mark Westhusin & Jorge Piedrahita

  2. Department of Veterinary Anatomy and Public Health,

    Mark Westhusin & Jorge Piedrahita

  3. Center for Animal Biotechnology and Genomics, Texas A&M University, College Station, 77843, TX

    Mark Westhusin & Jorge Piedrahita

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  1. Mark Westhusin
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  2. Jorge Piedrahita
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Westhusin, M., Piedrahita, J. Three little pigs worth the huff and puff?. Nat Biotechnol 18, 1144–1145 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/81119

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