A rare and often unrecognized cerebromeningitis and hemodynamic disorder: A major cause of sudden death in somatic cell cloned piglets

Abstract

In this study, we generated 40 somatic cell cloned (scNT) piglets. Of these, five piglets were stillborn, 22 scNT piglets died suddenly within the first week of life, and 1 piglet died after 40 days. Twelve scNT piglets are still healthy. The birth weights of compromised scNT piglets in comparison with those of normal scNT piglets are significantly reduced (0.80 +/- 0.29 vs 1.27 +/- 0.30 kg, p < 0.05), in spite of longer gestation (114 versus 120 day). Significant findings from histological examinations showed that approximately 25% (7/28) of scNT piglets showed severe congestion of lung and liver or neutrophilic inflammation in brain indicating that unexpected phenotypes can appear as a result of somatic cell cloning. Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis experiments revealed changes in the responses of several detoxification-related proteins related to stress and inflammation and found significant alterations in myocardium-specific proteins, indicating hemodynamic disorder. scNT piglets that survived to adulthood did not show any abnormality except skin and hair color depigmentation. The present study suggests that cerebromeningitis and hemodynamic disorder are a major risk factor for sudden early death of scNT piglets. Although we cannot completely exclude the possibility that scNT piglets are susceptible to specific respiratory infections, our data suggests that the early death of scNT clones is due to cardiopulmonary functional abnormalities and cerebromeningitis.

Serial cloning of pigs by somatic cell nuclear transfer: Restoration of phenotypic normality during serial cloning

“…An important advancement was made in the field recently when several research groups succeeded in cloning piglets from somatic cells (Betthauser et al, 2000;Onishi et al, 2000;Polejaeva et al, 2000;Bondioli et al, 2001;Yin et al, 2002Yin et al, , 2003Park et al, 2004Park et al, , 2005. This finding has permitted the genetic improvement of farmed pigs and the production of transgenic pigs for medical use and organ transplantation .…”

The effect of high-fat diet on the composition of the gut microbiota in cloned and non-cloned pigs of lean and obese phenotype

“…Cloning of pigs has been performed previously primarily by somatic cell nuclear transfer but this method often results in low numbers of cloned animals due to loss of embryos either during the gestation period or death of the piglets shortly after birth. 2,3 It has been suggested that cloning gives rise to altered metabolic characteristics, 4 skin abnormalities 5,6 and other physiological defects which may limit the use of cloned animals as experimental models. However so far there is only one study that has explored the gut microbiota in obese cloned pigs.…”

Expression of Innate Immune Response Genes in Liver and Three Types of Adipose Tissue in Cloned Pigs

“…Cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) in pigs remains a lowefficiency process with a small proportion of live clones and increased mortality perinatally (Park et al, 2005;Whitworth et al, 2009). The increased mortality has been attributed to a range of causes, including metabolic and cardiopulmonary abnormalities (Hill et al, 1999;Wells et al, 1999), lymphoid hypoplasia (Renard et al, 1999), and neonatal respiratory distress (Hill et al, 1999).…”