Abstract
For decades, a dream of animal breeders has been to clone (make exact genetic copies of) outstanding animals. This was first achieved by splitting embryos (1); however, with this technique, only a few animals of the same genetic origin could be produced (2). The second approach, which seemed to be more promising, was the embryo reconstruction using a single nucleus from an embryo to an enucleated one-cell embryo. This technique was based on an idea proposed by Spemann in 1938 (3). With only few exceptions, experiments on frogs and fish provided scientific evidence that all the cells in the body of an animal appear to contain the same genetic information, being contained in DNA, a molecule located in the nucleus of cells. Thus, within an animal, the DNA sequence in the mammary cells is identical to skin cells. These cells differ in their appearance and function because they utilize different parts of the genetic information, not because the total amount of information differs. Furthermore, all these cells have genetic information present in the one-cell embryo that develop into the animal. Therefore, if the nucleus of any of these cells were used to replace the genetic information in any one-cell embryo, an exact genetic copy of the animal whose cells donated the nucleus would develop. This theory was confirmed by successful experiments in frogs and fish (4,5). Using similar procedures and inner cell mass cells (ICM) as nuclear donors, Illmensee and Hoppe (6) reported the birth of live offspring (mice) in 1981. However, these results were never confirmed.
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Willadsen, S. M. (1979) A method for culture of micromanipulated sheep embryos and its use to produce monozygotic twins. Nature 277, 298–300.
Stice, S. L. and Keefer, C. L. (1993) Multiple generational bovine embryo cloning. Biol. Reprod. 48, 715–719.
Spemann, H. Embryonic Development and Induction. Hafner, New York, 1938, pp. 210–211.
Briggs, R. and King, T. J. (1952) Transplantation of living nuclei from blastula cells into enucleated frog’s eggs. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 38, 445–461.
Gurdon, J. B. and Uehlinger, V. (1966) Fertile intenstine nuclei. Nature 210, 1240–1241.
Illmensee, K. and Hoppe, P. C. (1981) Nuclear transplantation in Mus musculus: Developmental potential of nuclei from preimplantation embryos. Cell 23, 9–18.
Willadsen, S. M. (1996) Nuclear transplantation in sheep embryos. Nature 320, 63–65.
Wolf, E., Zakhartchenko, V., and Brem, G. (1998) Nuclear transfer in mammals: Recent developments and future perspectives. J. Biotechnol. 65, 99–110.
Wilmut, I., Schnieke, A. E., McWhir, J., Kind, A. J., and Campbell, K. H. S. (1997) Viable offspring derived from the fetal and adult mammalian cells. Nature 385, 810–813.
Cibelli, J. B., Stice, S. L., Golueke, P. J., Kane, J. J., Jerry, J., Blackwell, C., et al. (1998) Cloned transgenic calves produced from nonquiescent fetal fibroblasts. Science 280, 1256–1258.
Zakhartchenko, V., Mueller, S., Alberio, R., Schrenthaner, W., Stojkovic, M., Wenigerkind, H., et al. (2001) Nuclear transfer in cattle with non-transfected and transfected fetal or cloned transgenic fetal and postnatal fibroblasts. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 60, 362–369.
Westhusin, M. E., Long, C. R., Shin, T., Hill, J. R., Looney, C. R., Pryor, J. H., and Piedrahita, J. A. (2001) Cloning to reproduce desired genotypes. Theriogenology 55, 35–49.
Renard, J. P., Zhou, Qi., LeBourhis, D., Chavatte-Palmer, P., Hue, I., Heyman, Y., and Vignon, X. (2002) Nuclear transfer technologies: Between successes and doubts. Theriogenology 57, 203–222.
Brueggerhoff, K., Zakhartchenko, V., Wenigerkind, H., Reichenbach, H-D., Prelle K., Schernthaner, W., et al. (2002) Bovine somatic cell nuclear transfer using recipient oocytes recovered by ovum pick-up: Effect of maternal lineage of oocyte donors. Bio. Reprod. 66, 367–373.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Humana Press Inc.
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Brem, G., Nowshari, M.A. (2004). Nuclear Transfer in Cattle. In: Schatten, H. (eds) Germ Cell Protocols. Methods in Molecular Biology™, vol 254. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-741-6:213
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-741-6:213
Publisher Name: Humana Press
Print ISBN: 978-1-58829-257-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-59259-741-3
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols