Study on Production of Cloned Animals by Recycling Nuclear Transplantation II. Improved Second Generation Cloning of Rabbit Embryos Using Donor Nuclei with Synchronized Cell Cycles

반복핵이식에 의한 복제동물 생산에 관한 연구 II. 토끼에서 공핵배의 세포주기 조절에 의한 제2세대 복제배의 생산효율 개선

large scale production of cloned embryos requires the technology of multiple generation nuclear transplantation(NT) using NT embryos as the subsequent donor nuclei. The purposes of this study were producing the second generation cloned rabbit embryos, and also to determine the electrofusion rate and in vitro developmental potential comparatively in the cloned embryos of the first and second NT generation. The embryos of 16-cell stage were collected from the mated does by flushing oviducts with Dulbecco's phosphate buffered saline(D-PBS) containing 10% fetal calf serum(FCS) at 47 hours after hCG injection In the first generation NT, the nuclear donor embryos were synchronized in the phase of Gi /S transition of 32-cell stage. The first generation NT embryos which were developed to 8-cell were synchronized in Gi /S transition phase of the following 16-cell stage and used as donor nuclei for second generation Synchronization of the cell cycle of blastomeres was induced, first, using an inhibitor of microtuble polymerization, colcemid for 10 hours to arrest blastomeres in M phase, and secondly, using a DNA synthesis inhibitor, aphidicolin for 1.5 to 2 hours to arrest them in Gi /S transition boundary. The recipient cytoplasms were obtained by removing the nucleus and the first polar body from the oocytes collected at 14 hours after hCG injection. The separated donor blastomeres were injected into the enucleated recipient oocytes by micromanipulation and were electrofused by electrical stimulation of three pulses for 60 $\mu$sec at 1.25 kV /cm in 0.28 M rnannitol solution The fused oocytes were co-cultured with a monolayer of rabbit oviductal epithelial cells in M-199 solution containing 10% FCS for 120 hours at 39$^{\circ}C$ in a 5% $CO_2$ incubator. Following in vitro culture of the first and second generation cloned embryos to blastocyst stage, they were stained with Hoechst 33342 dye for counting the number of blastomeres by fluorescence microscopy. The results obtained were summarized as follows: 1. The electrofusion rate was found to be similar as 79.4 and 91.5% in the first and second generation NT rabbit embryos, respectively. 2. The in vitro developmental potential to blastocyst stage of the second generation NT embryos (23.3%) was found significantly(p<0.05) lower, compared with that of the first generation NT embryos (56.8%). 3. The mean blastomeres counts of embryos developed to blastosyst stage following in vitro culture for 120 hours and also their daily cell cycles during the culture period were decreased significantly (p<0.05) to 104.3 cells and 1.33 cylces in the second NT generation, compoared with 210.4 cells and 1.54 cycles in the first NT generation, respectively.