A complete culture system for the chick embryo

Abstract

The embryonic lifespan of the chick is 22 days. Development in the first day takes place in the oviduct, and in the remaining 21 days in the shelled egg. There have been few attempts to culture oviductal embryos, though methods covering the first few days of development in ovo are well established and a method for the final 18 days of development through hatching has recently been devised. I have now succeeded in culturing the fertilized ovum of the chick (Gallus domesticus) for the total embryonic period by growing it in a series of separate culture systems. This is the first report of a complete in vitro method for a homoiothermic animal. The technique opens the way to the investigation of developmental events in birds that require access to the embryo at the single-cell stage, and in particular to the genetic manipulation of the fertilized ovum.

Status of transgenic chicken models for developmental biology

“…Improvements in hatchability have also been reported by storing the eggs with the pointed end down for 5 to 7 days before injecting cells through the blunt end of the egg (Bednarczyk et al, 2000). Another alternative to the windowing techniques is to use an ex ovo culture system of freshly laid eggs (Rowlett and Simkiss, 1987;Perry, 1988). Briefly, the contents of freshly laid eggs are placed in individual surrogate chicken egg shells, and the embryos are injected with a suitable vector.…”

“…Subsequently, the chicken embryo is transferred to a surrogate turkey egg shell, which is covered with HandiWrap (Dow Chemical) until hatching (Petitte and Mozdziak, 2002). The modifications of the original procedures of Perry (1988) and Rowlett and Simkiss (1987) by Borwornpinyo (2000) resulted in 20% to 35% hatchability when used in conjunction with retroviral injections. The hatchability was sufficient to generate G0 roosters carrying the lacZ gene in their semen (Mozdziak et al, 2003).…”

Perspectives on avian stem cells for poultry breeding

“…The manipulated embryos were cultured by an ex vivo system (Naito et al 1990; Perry 1988). The stem cells injected into recipient translocated into the hypoblast (Watanabe et al 1992).…”

New system for real time study of in vivo migration and differentiation of stem cells

“…The procedure for the preparation of the explantation culture in surrogate shells is described elsewhere (Perry 1988;Rowlett and Simkiss 1987). In short, donor embryos were harvested from fertilised Bantam chicken eggs and were transferred into the surrogate shells prepared from 30 g heavier eggs after removing the blunt pole.…”

“…Rowlett and Simkiss (1987) first reported that 3-day pre-incubated chicken embryos inside the egg could be cultured to hatching using turkey eggshells. Later, Perry (1988) devised a complete three-step culture method for the chicken embryos from the single-cell stage obtained from the posterior region of the magnum to hatching using glass jars and chicken eggshells. The system consists of chicken embryos explanted into a surrogate shell taken from a donor egg and is closed with double layer of cling film.…”