Xist is an X-linked gene responsible for cis induction of X chromosome inactivation. Studies have indicated that Xist is abnormally activated in the active X chromosome in cloned mouse embryos due to loss of the maternal Xist-repressing imprint following enucleation during somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). Inhibition of Xist expression by injecting small interfering RNA (siRNA) has been sho...

The effects of intracellular lipid polarization and lipid removal treatments on the postthawed in vitro development of frozen bovine embryos at the 8-cell stage were studied. As the first step, bovine presumptive zygotes were centrifuged at 16,000 g for 20 min for the cytoplasmic lipid polarization and their lipid layers were removed by micromanipulation in order to examine the influence of the...

Background Timing of the first zygotic cleavage is an accurate predictor of embryo quality. Embryos that cleaved early (EC) have been shown to exhibit higher developmental viability compared to those that cleaved at a later period (LC). However, the viability of EC embryos in comparison to LC embryos after vitrification is unknown. The present study aims to investigate the post-vitrification de...

Monomeric Plum (Plum), a far-red fluorescent protein with photostability and photopermeability, is potentially suitable for in vivo imaging and detection of fluorescence in body tissues. The aim of this study was to generate transgenic cloned pigs exhibiting systemic expression of Plum using somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) technology. Nuclear donor cells for SCNT were obtained by introduci...

To facilitate the construction of genetically-modified pigs, we produced cloned embryos derived from porcine fibroblasts transfected with a pair of engineered zinc finger nuclease (ZFN) plasmids to create targeted mutations and enriched using a reporter plasmid system. The reporter expresses RFP and eGFP simultaneously when ZFN-mediated site-specific mutations occur. Thus, double positive cells...

background: the aim of this study was to clone pparγ1 cdna in an appropriate mammalian expression vector, with a chimeric cdna form, encompassing pparγ with enhanced green fluorescent protein (egfp) cdna. this recombinant plasmid will be used for further analyses to investigate the molecular mechanism of pparγ1 for neural differentiation process. moreover, the nuclear localization of the pparγ1...

OBJECTIVE Phellodendron amurense (P. amurense) and Humulus japonicus (H. japonicus) are closely involved in anti-oxidative response and increasing antioxidant enzymes activities. However, the effects of their extracts on development of preimplantation bovine embryos have not been investigated. Therefore, we investigated the effects of P. amurense and H. japonicus extracts on developmental compe...

The generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and subsequent mitochondrial and DNA damage in bovine somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) embryos were examined. Bovine enucleated oocytes were electrofused with donor cells and then activated by a combination of Ca-ionophore and 6-dimethylaminopurine culture. The H2O2 and ˙OH radical levels, mitochondrial morphology and membrane potential (ΔΨ), ...