Production of Monozygotic Multiplets from 8-cell Mouse Embryos through the Construction of Chimeric Embryos

Chimeric embryo의 구성을 통한 8세포기 생쥐 수정란으로부터의 일란성 다쌍자 생산

To obtain monozygotic multiplets from 8-cell mouse embryos, we artificially constructed chimeric embryos by introducing one blastomere (donor) of 8-cell embryos of Fl hybrid (C57BL/6 X CBA) mice into 4-cell ICR mouse embryos (carrier) of which one blastomere had been previously removed with a micromanipulator. After 42 h of culture, the developmental frequency of chimeric embryos to normal morula and blastocyst was 95% (310/328). When chimeric embryos at morula or blastocvst stage were transferred to pseudopregnant mice,39%, (70/180) of them were born. Most of the offspring (56/70) were the carrier type in coat color, whereas only three of them were the donor type, of which ho were assumed to be derived from single 8-cell donor embryo. Because the two donor type mice Ivere the same sex and produced only the donor type offspring from a testcross, they are probably monozvgotic multiplets of 8-cell mouse embryos. However, since their internal chimerism was not able to be examined, it remains to be determined if their genetic constitutions are identical.