Dogs cloned from adult somatic cells

Abstract

Several mammals--including sheep, mice, cows, goats, pigs, rabbits, cats, a mule, a horse and a litter of three rats--have been cloned by transfer of a nucleus from a somatic cell into an egg cell (oocyte) that has had its nucleus removed. This technology has not so far been successful in dogs because of the difficulty of maturing canine oocytes in vitro. Here we describe the cloning of two Afghan hounds by nuclear transfer from adult skin cells into oocytes that had matured in vivo. Together with detailed sequence information generated by the canine-genome project, the ability to clone dogs by somatic-cell nuclear transfer should help to determine genetic and environmental contributions to the diverse biological and behavioural traits associated with the many different canine breeds.

Effect of bovine cumulus–oocyte complexes‐conditioned medium on in‐vitro maturation of canine oocytes

“…Since that report, and despite numerous studies documenting and focusing on establishing a suitable system for IVM of canine oocytes [15][16][17][18][19], the efficiency is lower than for other domestic mammalian species, for example cattle [20,21], sheep [22], pigs [23], mice [24], and cats [25]. Although puppies have been produced from somatic cell nuclear transfer of in-vivo matured oocytes [26], there has been no report of the production of live young after transfer of in-vitro maturation and fertilization-derived embryos [27].…”

Canine Embryo‐Derived Stem Cells—Toward Clinically Relevant Animal Models for Evaluating Efficacy and Safety of Cell Therapies

“…Since the dog is the ideal preclinical model for testing new therapies for many human diseases, the availability of canine embryo-derived stem cells for in vitro differentiation studies will be of great value for the development of new therapies, especially in hematology. Moreover, nuclear transfer from canine somatic cells is possible [8], providing the opportunity to evaluate the concept of "therapeutic cloning" in a clinically relevant animal model.In a recent report, Hatoya and colleagues [9] describe the isolation of two ES-like cell lines from canine blastocysts. The cell lines were shown to exhibit characteristic ES-like morphology and expression of pluripotency markers.…”

Chroniques Génomiques : Snuppy le Coréen

“…Début août, voici venu le tour du « meilleur ami de l'homme » avec Snuppy, dont le clonage à partir de cellules d'un lévrier afghan est relaté dans un récent article de Nature [1]. Ce succès arrive après beaucoup d'efforts et d'échecs : le chien a fait l'objet de nombreuses tentatives et s'est révélé singulièrement récalcitrant à la reproduction par transfert nucléaire.…”