Epigenetic reprogramming plays a central role in the development of cloned embryos generated by somatic cell nuclear transfer, and it is believed that aberrant reprogramming leads to the abnormal development of most cloned embryos. Recent studies show that trimethylation of H3K27 (H3K27me3) contributes to the maintenance of embryonic stem cell pluripotency because the differentiation genes are always occupied by nucleosomes trimethylated at H3K27, which represses gene expression. Here, we provide evidence that differential H3K27me3 modification exists between normal fertilization-produced blastocysts and somatic cell nuclear transfer cloned blastocysts; H3K27me3 was specifically found in cells of the inner cell mass (ICM) of normal blastocysts, whereas there was no modification of H3K27me3 in the ICM of cloned blastocysts. Subsequently, we demonstrated that the differentiation-related genes, which are marked by H3K27me3 in embryonic stem cells, were expressed at significantly higher levels in cloned embryos than in normal embryos. The polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) component genes (Eed, Ezh2, and Suz12), which are responsible for the generation of H3K27me3, were expressed at lower levels in the cloned embryos. Our results suggest that reduced expression of PRC2 component genes in cloned embryos results in defective modification of H3K27me3 to the differentiation-related genes in pluripotent ICM cells. This results in premature expression of developmental genes and death of somatic cloned embryos shortly after implantation. Taken together, these studies suggest that H3K27me3 might be an important epigenetic marker with which to evaluate the developmental potential of cloned embryos. Embryonic stem (ES)3 cells are derived from the inner cell mass (ICM) of a blastocyst. ES cells are pluripotent and can maintain self-renewal under appropriate culture conditions (1-3). Gene expression profiles of ES cells revealed that there is a core pluripotency regulatory circuitry formed by Oct4, Sox2, and Nanog, which coordinated to maintain the transcriptional program required for the maintenance of ES cell pluripotency (4). Results from recent studies have indicated that ES cells possess a bivalent chromatin structure, which has been suggested to be essential for maintaining their self-renewal and pluripotency characteristics. The bivalent chromatin domains of ES cells consisted of large regions of H3K27 methylation and smaller regions of H3K4 methylation (5). Trimethylation of H3K27 is associated with the activity of the polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2); and recent studies have indicated that PRC2 specifically targets developmental genes, which are marked by H3K27me3, to maintain ES cell pluripotency by repressing expression of these genes (6 -12).Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) represents a remarkable process in which the differentiated somatic cell genome can be converted into a totipotent or at least a pluripotent state (13-16). However, the efficiency of cloning is extremely low, as less than 5% of cloned e...

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Screening of foodborne pathogens is an effective way to prevent microbial food poisoning. A microfluidic biosensor was developed for rapid and sensitive detection of Salmonella Typhimurium using quantum dots (QDs) as fluorescent probes for sensor readout and manganese dioxide nanoflowers (MnO2 NFs) and as QDs nanocarriers for signal amplification. Prior to testing, amino-modified MnO2 nanoflowers (MnO2-NH2 NFs) were conjugated with carboxyl-modified QDs through EDC/NHSS method to form MnO2-QD NFs, and MnO2-QD NFs were functionalized with polyclonal antibodies (pAbs) to form MnO2-QD-pAb NFs. First, the mixture of target Salmonella Typhimurium cells and magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) modified with monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) was injected with MnO2-QD-pAb NFs into a microfluidic chip to form MNP-bacteria-QD-MnO2 complexes. Then, glutathione (GSH) was injected to dissolve MnO2 on the complexes into Mn2+, resulting in the release of QDs. Finally, fluorescent intensity of the released QDs was measured using the fluorescent detector to determine the amount of Salmonella. A linear relationship between fluorescent intensity and bacterial concentration from 1.0 × 102 to 1.0 × 107 CFU/mL was found with a low detection limit of 43 CFU/mL and mean recovery of 99.7% for Salmonella in spiked chicken meats, indicating the feasibility of this biosensor for practical applications.

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