Generation of Embryonic Stem Cell-derived Transgenic Mice by Using Tetraploid Complementation

The objective of this study was to generate transgenic mice expressing human resistin gene by using the tetraploidembryonic stem (ES) cell complementation method. Human resistin gene was amplified from human fetal liver cDNA library by PCR, cloned into $pCR^{(R)}$ 2.1 $TOPO^{(R)}$ vector and constructed in pCMV-Tag4C vector. Mammalian expression plasmid containing human resistin was transfected into D3-GL ES cells by Lipofectamine 2,000, and then after 10-12 days of transfection, the human resistin-expressing cells were selected with G418. In order to produce tetraploid embryos, blastomeres of diploid embryos at the two-cell stage were fused with two times of electric pulse using 60 V 30 $\mu$sec (fusion rate: 2,114/2,256, 93.5%) and cultured up to the blastocyst stage (development rate: 1,862/2,114, 94.6%). The selected 15-20 ES cells were injected into tetraploid blastocysts, and then transferred into the uteri of E 2.5 d pseudopregnant recipient mice. To investigate the gestation progress, two E 19.5 mused fetuses were recovered by Cesarean section of which one fetus was confirmed to contain human resistin gene by genomic DNA-PCR. Therefore, our findings demonstrate that tetraploid-ES mouse technology can be considered as a useful tool to produce transgenic mice for the rapid analysis of gene function in vivo.