Oocytes, embryos and pluripotent stem cells from a biomedical perspective

Abstract

The veterinary and animal science professions are rapidly developing and their inherent and historical connection to agriculture is challenged by more biomedical and medical directions of research. While some consider this development as a risk of losing identity, it may also be seen as an opportunity for developing further and more sophisticated competences that may ultimately feed back to veterinary and animal science in a synergistic way. The present review describes how agriculture-related studies on bovine in vitro embryo production through studies of putative bovine and porcine embryonic stem cells led the way to more sophisticated studies of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) using e.g. gene editing for modeling of neurodegeneration in man. However, instead of being a blind diversion from veterinary and animal science into medicine, these advanced studies of human iPSC-derived neurons build a set of competences that allowed us, in a more competent way, to focus on novel aspects of more veterinary and agricultural relevance in the form of porcine and canine iPSCs. These types of animal stem cells are of biomedical importance for modeling of iPSC-based therapy in man, but in particular the canine iPSCs are also important for understanding and modeling canine diseases, as e.g. canine cognitive dysfunction, for the benefit and therapy of dogs.

Clinical Cytogenetics of the Dog: A Review

“…There has to date been no information on chromosome abnormalities in oocytes or embryos, despite the fact that studies of in vitro embryo production in dogs are quite advanced [ 68 ]. It can be foreseen that more such studies will be undertaken due to the increase in interest in biomedical research using induced pluripotent somatic cells [ 69 ].…”

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells from Animal Models: Applications on Translational Research

“…For instance, the neurobehavioral syndrome called canine cognitive dysfunction (CCD), which affects 14.2-22.5% of dogs over eight years old, shares many clinical and neuropathological similarities with human aging and early stages of Alzheimer's Disease [151][152][153][154]. Recently, Hyttel and collaborators [155] aimed to characterize the CCD condition in iPSC-derived neurons from aged demented and healthy dogs, allowing the comparison of CCD with human Alzheimer's at the cellular level. Canine iPSCs have also been tested in other studies, as researchers transplanted autologous iPSCs into the myocardial wall of dogs to examine the potential for myocardial infarct treatment, and the stem cell population were tracked regarding distribution, migration, engraftment, survival, proliferation, and differentiation [142].…”

Epigenetic clock and methylation study of oocytes from a bovine model of reproductive aging

“…DNA methylation, epigenetic clock, epigenome-wide association study, oocytes, reproductive aging ruminant in vitro models in the field of human reproduction has increased (Adams et al, 2012;Hyttel et al, 2019).…”

“…Due to ethical restrictions for research on human oocytes, bovine oocytes are a common and attractive model of oocyte developmental competence and reproduction. Interest in bovine pre‐implantation embryology and bovine/ruminant in vitro models in the field of human reproduction has increased (Adams et al, 2012; Hyttel et al, 2019).…”