Since the first mouse clone was produced by somatic cell nuclear transfer, the success rate of cloning in mice has been extremely low. Some histone deacetylase inhibitors, such as trichostatin A and scriptaid, have improved the full-term development of mouse clones significantly, but the mechanisms allowing for this are unclear. Here, we found that two other specific inhibitors, suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid and oxamflatin, could also reduce the rate of apoptosis in blastocysts, improve the full-term development of cloned mice, and increase establishment of nuclear transfer-generated embryonic stem cell lines significantly without leading to obvious abnormalities. However, another inhibitor, valproic acid, could not improve cloning efficiency. Suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid, oxamflatin, trichostatin A, and scriptaid are inhibitors for classes I and IIa/b histone deacetylase, whereas valproic acid is an inhibitor for classes I and IIa, suggesting that inhibiting class IIb histone deacetylase is an important step for reprogramming mouse cloning efficiency.

To clarify the causes of the poor success rate of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), we addressed the impact of abnormalities observed at early cleavage stages of development on further full-term development using 'less-damage' imaging technology. To visualize the cellular and nuclear division processes, SCNT embryos were injected with a mixture of mRNAs encoding enhanced green fluorescent protein coupled with α-tubulin (EGFP-α-tubulin) and monomeric red fluorescent protein 1 coupled with histone H2B (H2B-mRFP1) and monitored until the morula/blastocyst stage three-dimensionally. First, the rate of development of SCNT embryos and its effect on the full-term developmental ability were analyzed. The speed of development was retarded and varied in SCNT embryos. Despite the rate of development, SCNT morulae having more than eight cells at 70h after activation could develop to term. Next, chromosomal segregation was investigated in SCNT embryos during early embryogenesis. To our surprise, more than 90% of SCNT embryos showed abnormal chromosomal segregation (ACS) before they developed to morula stage. Importantly, ACS per se did not affect the rate of development, morphology or cellular differentiation in preimplantation development. However, ACS occurring before the 8-cell stage severely inhibited postimplantation development. Thus, the morphology and/or rate of development are not significant predictive markers for the full-term development of SCNT embryos. Moreover, the low efficiency of animal cloning may be caused primarily by genetic abnormalities such as ACS, in addition to the epigenetic errors described previously.

Postovulatory mammalian oocytes age significantly in culture. B6D2F1 or ICR strain mouse oocytes were collected 16 h after hCG injection and then cultured for up to 40 h post hCG at 37 °C under 5% CO(2) in air. After intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), B6D2F1 and ICR oocytes lost full-term developmental potential by 30 h and 26 h after hCG administration, respectively. However, using supplementation with 10 mM caffeine or 1-5 μM of MG132, we could obtain live offspring from oocytes at 34 h (BDF1, 5%-21%) or 28 h (ICR, 5%-18%), whereas none were obtained from untreated aged oocytes. Caffeine maintained normal meiotic spindle morphology, whereas MG132 maintained maturation-promoting factor activity. These treatments did not affect the potential of fresh oocytes for fertilization and subsequent development. Thus, it should be safe to use these chemicals in routine in vitro fertilization and offspring could be generated by ICSI of aged fertilization failed oocytes.

We studied the effects on 25 analytes of duration of contact of serum with non-anticoagulated blood and of temperature. Serum was separated after blood was allowed to stand, for 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 24, or 48 h at 4, 23, or 30 degrees C. Results obtained for bilirubin, albumin, zinc sulfate turbidity, thymol turbidity, cholinesterase (EC 3.1.1.8), alkaline phosphatase (EC 3.1.3.1), leucine aminopeptidase (EC 3.4.11.1), amylase (EC 3.2.1.2), total cholesterol, triglycerides, beta-lipoprotein, serum urea nitrogen, creatinine, uric acid, and gamma-glutamyltransferase (EC 2.3.2.2) were not influenced by storage at 4, 24, or 30 degrees C for as long as 48 h. Negligible differences were seen for potassium in sera in contact with cells as long as 24 h at 23 degrees C and for inorganic phosphorus after 48 h at 4 degrees C. However, at 4 degrees C we noted an increase at 8 h, a slight decrease at 30 degrees C. Statistically significant changes were seen for total protein and calcium after 48 h at 30 degrees C; for aspartate aminotransferase (EC 2.6.1.1), and alanine aminotransferase (EC 2.6.1.2), between 8 and 24 h at 23 degrees C and as soon as 6 h at 30 degrees C; for lactate dehydrogenase (EC 1.1.1.27) after 8 h at 30 degrees C and between 8 and 24 h at 23 degrees C; for glucose at 24, 4, or 2 h of storage at 4, 23, or 30 degrees C, respectively; for inorganic phosphorus after 48 h at 23 degrees C or 8 h at 30 degrees C; for potassium after 4 h at 4 degrees C or 24 h at 30 degrees C; and for sodium after 48 h at 4 degrees C or 6 h at 23 or 30 degrees C.

Abstract. Mouse spermatozoa can be freeze dried without losing genetic integrity and reproductive potential. However, it is not known if freeze-dried mouse cells similarly maintain their genetic integrity and developmental potential following nuclear transfer. Here, we investigated the developmental capacity and embryonic stem (ES) cell derivation of reconstructed oocytes by nuclear transfer using freeze-dried cumulus or ES cells. Cumulus and ES cells were lyophilized overnight and stored at 4 C for up to 1 week. After rehydration, all cells showed membrane damage and were unviable. However, following nuclear transfer, 1-4% of the reconstructed oocytes developed to the blastocyst stage. A total of five nuclear transfer ES (ntES) cell lines were generated from blastocysts and morulae. All ntES cell lines had normal karyotypes and were positive for the ES-cell-specific markers (alkaline phosphatase, Oct3/4 and Nanog). After aggregation of ntES cells with fertilized embryos, chimeric mice with a high level of coat color chimerism were generated. Our findings show that the genomic integrity of cells can be maintained after freeze-drying and that it is possible to produce offspring from the cells using nuclear transfer techniques. Key words: Clone, Freeze-dry, Nuclear transfer, Nuclear transfer embryonic stem (ntES) cell, Mouse, Reprogramming (J. Reprod. Dev. 54: [486][487][488][489][490][491] 2008) reeze-dried sperm can support normal development into healthy mice if injected directly into mature oocytes even though the lyophilized spermatozoa are all dead in the conventional sense [1,2]. It has been shown that the complete sperm DNA can be maintained after freeze-drying in several species [3,4]. In mammals, spermatozoa are structurally compatible with lyophilisation since they are small cells with a low level of hydration and their transcriptionally inactive DNA are tightly packed with protamines [5]. In contrast to spermatozoa, it has been thought that somatic cells would be less tolerant to the freeze-drying process because they are larger, have a higher water content and their chromatin organization is unpacked, making them vulnerable to the freezedrying process. It is not known if freeze-dried cell nuclei can generate further generations following nuclear transfer.It has been shown that when frozen cells are thawed without cryoprotection, nuclear transfer ES (ntES) cell lines can be generated from the dead cell nuclei and live mice can be created via germline transmission of chimeric mice [6]. We have already succeeded in producing live cloned mice from mouse somatic cells frozen for 16 years [7], and this suggests that the viability of donor cells is not important for producing the next generation using nuclear transfer. Recently, Loi et al. reported that sheep blastocysts could be generated from freeze-dried somatic cells with a similar success rate as for fresh cells following storage at room temperature for 3 years [8]. This was the first attempt to use freeze-dried somatic cells for nuclear transfer, bu...