The generation of cloned Drosophila melanogaster

Various nuclear reprogramming systems using egg and oocyte materials

Maternal factors stored in eggs and oocytes are necessary for reprogramming sperm for embryonic development. This reprogramming activity of maternal factors also works towards somatic cells, including terminally differentiated cells. Several different experimental systems utilizing egg and oocyte materials have been applied to study nuclear reprogramming by maternal factors. Among these systems, the most widely used is the transfer of a somatic cell nucleus to an oocyte arrested at the metaphase II stage, leading to the production of a cloned animal. Nuclear transfer to an unfertilized oocyte thus provides a unique opportunity to examine reprogramming processes involved in acquiring totipotency. Other experimental systems are also available to study maternal reprogramming, such as nuclear transfer to Xenopus laevis oocytes at the germinal vesicle stage, treatment with extracts obtained from eggs or oocytes, and induced pluripotency with overexpressed maternal factors. Each system can be used for answering different types of scientific questions. This review describes currently available reprogramming systems using egg and oocyte materials and discusses how we can deepen our understanding of reprogramming mechanisms by taking advantage of these various experimental systems.

Nuclear transfer of freeze-dried somatic cells into enucleated sheep oocytes

Lyophilization has been used since long time to preserve yeast and bacteria strains. Subsequently, a great deal of efforts has been dedicated to the preservation in a dry state of red blood cells and platelets. However, despite more than 30 years passed by, no significant progress has been achieved. Recently, it has been reported that freeze-dried mice spermatozoa were able to generate normal offspring following injection into the mature mice oocytes. In this work, we prompted to apply the lyophilization protocol developed for mice spermatozoa to sheep somatic cells (lymphocytes and granulosa cells). More than 350 enucleated sheep oocytes were injected with granulosa cells, and freeze dried using the protocol developed for mice sperm cells. Transplanted nuclei organized large pronuclei with fragmented DNA, but none of them entered the first mitosis. In the second part of the experiments, trehalose and EGTA were found to reduce significantly the extent of nuclear damage (65% and 55% intact nuclei in lymphocyte and granulosa cells, respectively) following freeze drying. Granulosa cells lyophilized with EGTA/trehalose and stored at room temperature for 3 years were used for nuclear transfer, and the injected oocytes were cultured in vitro for 7 days. Approximately 16% of the oocyte injected with freeze-dried cells developed into blastocysts. To conclude, we demonstrated for the first time that nucleated cells maintain genomic integrity after prolonged storage in a dry state, and we were able to achieve early embryonic development following injection of these cells into enucleated sheep oocytes.

Loss of genomic imprinting in Drosophila clones

Genomic imprinting is a process that genetically distinguishes maternal and paternal genomes, and can result in parent-of-origin-dependent monoallelic expression of a gene that is dependent on the parent of origin. As such, an otherwise functional maternally inherited allele may be silenced so that the gene is expressed exclusively from the paternal allele, or vice versa. Once thought to be restricted to mammals, genomic imprinting has been documented in angiosperm plants (J.L. Kermicle. 1970. Genetics, 66: 69-85), zebrafish (C.C. Martin and R. McGowan. 1995. Genet. Res. 65: 21-28), insects, and C. elegans (C.J. Bean, C.E. Schaner, and W.G. Kelly. 2004. Nat. Genet. 36: 100-105.). In each case, it appears to rely on differential chromatin structure. Aberrant imprinting has been implicated in various human cancers and has been detected in a number of cloned mammals, potentially limiting the usefulness of somatic nuclear transfer. Here we show that genomic imprinting associated with a mini-X chromosome is lost in Drosophila melanogaster clones.