E-Only Articles
Efficient selection of Gal-knockout pig cells for somatic cell nuclear transfer
The process of selecting transgenic cells has been one of the bottlenecks in the generation of transgenic animals by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). In particular, selection for the Gal double-knockout (Gal-DKO) genotype has been time consuming and inefficient. The objective of this work was to generate a highly efficient system to select Gal-DKO cells to be used in SCNT without affecting the efficiency in production of Gal-null pigs.Biallelic knockout of the α-1,3 galactosyltransferase gene in porcine liver-derived cells using zinc finger nucleases
Genetic modification of the pig has been hampered by inefficiency of homologous recombination and unavailability of pig embryonic stem cells. Engineered zinc finger nuclease (ZFN)–mediated genetic modification in somatic cells combined with somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) technology provides a new approach for targeted modification in pig genome. In this study, we used a ZFN pair to disrupt porcine α-1,3, galactosyltransferase (GGTA1) gene in liver-derived cells (LDC). ZFN-treated LDC were used as nuclear donors to produce fetuses and piglets via SCNT.
