Variation in expression of a bovine alpha-lactalbumin transgene in milk of transgenic mice

A Comparative Review of the Extrinsic and Intrinsic Factors Regulating Lactose Synthesis

Milk is critical for the survival of all mammalian offspring, where its production by a mammary gland is also positively associated with its lactose concentration. A clearer understanding of the factors that regulate lactose synthesis stands to direct strategies for improving neonatal health while also highlighting opportunities to manipulate and improve milk production and composition. In this review we draw a cross-species comparison of the extra- and intramammary factors that regulate lactose synthesis, with a special focus on humans, dairy animals, and rodents. We outline the various factors known to influence lactose synthesis including diet, hormones, and substrate supply, as well as the intracellular molecular and genetic mechanisms. We also discuss the strengths and limitations of various in vivo and in vitro systems for the study of lactose synthesis, which remains an important research gap.

Hormonal regulation of platypus Beta-lactoglobulin and monotreme lactation protein genes

Endocrine regulation of milk protein gene expression in marsupials and eutherians is well studied. However, the evolution of this complex regulation that began with monotremes is unknown. Monotremes represent the oldest lineage of extant mammals and the endocrine regulation of lactation in these mammals has not been investigated. Here we characterised the proximal promoter and hormonal regulation of two platypus milk protein genes, Beta-lactoglobulin (BLG), a whey protein and monotreme lactation protein (MLP), a monotreme specific milk protein, using in vitro reporter assays and a bovine mammary epithelial cell line (BME-UV1). Insulin and dexamethasone alone provided partial induction of MLP, while the combination of insulin, dexamethasone and prolactin was required for maximal induction. Partial induction of BLG was achieved by insulin, dexamethasone and prolactin alone, with maximal induction using all three hormones. Platypus MLP and BLG core promoter regions comprised transcription factor binding sites (e.g. STAT5, NF-1 and C/EBPα) that were conserved in marsupial and eutherian lineages that regulate caseins and whey protein gene expression. Our analysis suggests that insulin, dexamethasone and/or prolactin alone can regulate the platypus MLP and BLG gene expression, unlike those of therian lineage. The induction of platypus milk protein genes by lactogenic hormones suggests they originated before the divergence of marsupial and eutherians.

Biological underpinnings of breastfeeding challenges: the role of genetics, diet, and environment on lactation physiology

Lactation is a dynamic process that has evolved to produce a complex biological fluid that provides nutritive and nonnutritive factors to the nursing offspring. It has long been assumed that once lactation is successfully initiated, the primary factor regulating milk production is infant demand. Thus, most interventions have focused on improving breastfeeding education and early lactation support. However, in addition to infant demand, increasing evidence from studies conducted in experimental animal models, production animals, and breastfeeding women suggests that a diverse array of maternal factors may also affect milk production and composition. In this review, we provide an overview of our current understanding of the role of maternal genetics and modifiable factors, such as diet and environmental exposures, on reproductive endocrinology, lactation physiology, and the ability to successfully produce milk. To identify factors that may affect lactation in women, we highlight some information gleaned from studies in experimental animal models and production animals. Finally, we highlight the gaps in current knowledge and provide commentary on future research opportunities aimed at improving lactation outcomes in breastfeeding women to improve the health of mothers and their infants.

Short communication: Mouse mammary tumor virus driven α-lactalbumin expression effects on lactation and fertility of transgenic mice

α-Lactalbumin (Alac) is one of the major milk proteins. Its gene expression is restricted to epithelial cells of the lactating mammary gland. The Alac interaction with a uridine 5'-diphosphate-galactosyltransferase induces lactose synthesis, a major osmotic regulator of milk secretion. Other functions attributed to this protein include induction of apoptosis and anti-inflammatory activities. To assess if forced expression of this gene during early gestation or involution could affect mammary physiology, an Alac-encoding minigene was expressed in transgenic mice under the transcriptional regulation of the mouse mammary tumor virus promoter. The mammary expression did not interfere with gestation, resulted in a slight increase in milk yield as indirectly assessed by the 11% increased growth rate of the pups reared by transgenic females compared with that of those reared by control mice, and induced a slight delay in the early involution process, as demonstrated by histological analyses. The use of the mouse mammary tumor virus promoter resulted in Alac expression in several nonmammary tissues, such as the brain, the testis, the ovary, and the uterus. Although it did not affect male reproductive performances, it induced a female subfertile phenotype, characterized by embryonic implantation failure in the transgenic female reproductive tract.

In vitro and ex vivo green fluorescent protein expression in alveolar mammary epithelial cells and mammary glands driven by the distal 5'-regulative sequence and intron 1 of the goat beta-casein gene

The 5'-regulative sequence and intron 1 of the goat beta-casein gene from -4044 to +2123 bp was cloned and fused with the reporter gene of green fluorescent protein (GFP) to create a plasmid termed pGB562/GFP. To detect GFP expression, pGB562/GFP was transfected in vitro via liposomes into the mammary epithelial cell line NMuMG. Cells could not express GFP unless the transfected NMuMG cells lined up to create functional alveoli. These functional cells were cultured with lactogenic hormones, including insulin, dexamethasone and prolactin, and were grown on a layer of the extracellular matrix Matrigel. Green fluorescent protein expression levels in NMuMG cells were 25-, 55- and 42-fold those in the control group at 24, 48, and 72 h after pGB562/GFP transfection respectively. In addition, pGB562/GFP was transfected ex vivo by electroporation into mammary gland fragments and cells were then cultured in vitro with a supplement of lactogenic hormones. Strong GFP expression localized in fragments of the mammary gland was observed 24 h after gene transfer. The novel strategy of ex vivo gene transfer into mammary tissue using GFP as a reporter gene to detect the function of a tissue-specific promoter is efficient and convenient. The data obtained herein reveal that the 5'-regulative sequence and intron 1 of the 6.2 kb goat beta-casein gene can enhance the efficiency of transgene expression. Thus, the GB562 sequence may act as a good promoter and effectively elevate the production of exogenous protein in mammary glands.

Designer milk

Dairy biotechnology is fast gaining ground in the area of altering milk composition for processing and/or animal and human health by employing nutritional and genetic approaches. Modification of the primary structure of casein, alteration in the lipid profile, increased protein recovery, milk containing nutraceuticals, and replacement for infant formula offer several advantages in the area of processing. Less fat in milk, altered fatty acid profiles to include more healthy fatty acids such as CLA and ω‐fats, improved amino acid profiles, more protein, less lactose, and absence of β‐lactoglobulin (β‐LG) are some opportunities of “designing” milk for human health benefits. Transgenic technology has also produced farm animals that secrete in their milk, human lactoferrin, lysozyme, and lipase so as to simulate human milk in terms of quality and quantity of these elements that are protective to infants. Cow milk allergenicity in children could be reduced by eliminating the β‐LG gene from bovines. Animals that produce milk containing therapeutic agents such as insulin, plasma proteins, drugs, and vaccines for human health have been genetically engineered. In order to cater to animal health, transgenic animals that express in their mammary glands, various components that work against mastitis have been generated. The ultimate acceptability of the “designer” products will depend on ethical issues such as animal welfare and safety, besides better health benefits and increased profitability of products manufactured by the novel techniques.

An expression profile of human alpha-lactalbumin in the milk of transgenic mouse

Five female transgenic mice were produced by microinjection using a construct made up of a 7.3-kb-5' flanking region and a 2.0-kb coding region of human alpha-lactalbumin, as well as a 227-bp 3'-flanking region from bovine growth hormone gene. A founder female expressed human alpha-lactalbumin as much as 0.3 g per liter of its milk, approximately a 3-fold increase in the total alpha-lactalbumin concentration of the transgenic mouse milk. Compared with the normal mice, the expression profile of the halpha-Lac transgene in the transgenics is different during the lactation, showing low level in the first 3 days and becoming increased from day 4, then gradually reaching and stabilizing at the highest level from day 13. In addition, the milk yielding volume in the transgenics tended to be higher than in normal mice, suggesting higher concentrations of alpha-lactalbumin might boost more milk output.

Production of transgenic livestock: Promise fulfilled1

The introduction of specific genes into the genome of farm animals and its stable incorporation into the germ line has been a major technological advance in agriculture. Transgenic technology provides a method to rapidly introduce "new" genes into cattle, swine, sheep, and goats without crossbreeding. It is a more extreme methodology, but in essence, not really different from crossbreeding or genetic selection in its result. Methods to produce transgenic animals have been available for more than 20 yr, yet recently lines of transgenic livestock have been developed that have the potential to improve animal agriculture and benefit producers and/or consumers. There are a number of methods that can be used to produce transgenic animals. However, the primary method to date has been the microinjection of genes into the pronuclei of zygotes. This method is one of an array of rapidly developing transgenic methodologies. Another method that has enjoyed recent success is that of nuclear transfer or "cloning." The use of this technique to produce transgenic livestock will profoundly affect the use of transgenic technology in livestock production. Cell-based, nuclear transfer or cloning strategies have several distinct advantages for use in the production of transgenic livestock that cannot be attained using pronuclear injection of DNA. Practical applications of transgenesis in livestock production include enhanced prolificacy and reproductive performance, increased feed utilization and growth rate, improved carcass composition, improved milk production and/or composition, and increased disease resistance. One practical application of transgenics in swine production is to improve milk production and/or composition. To address the problem of low milk production, transgenic swine over-expressing the milk protein bovine alpha-lactalbumin were developed and characterized. The outcomes assessed were milk composition, milk yield, and piglet growth. Our results indicate that transgenic overexpression of milk proteins may provide a means to improve swine lactation performance.

Short communication: effects of increased expression of alpha-lactalbumin in transgenic mice on milk yield and pup growth

Lactose synthase (a complex of beta1,4-galactosyltransferase and alpha-lactalbumin) forms lactose in the Golgi complex of mammary epithelial cells. To determine whether alpha-lactalbumin is a limiting component in this complex, transgenic mice that expressed bovine alpha-lactalbumin were studied. Transgenic mice produced 0.5 to 1.5 mg/ml of bovine alpha-lactalbumin in their milk, 5- to 15-fold more alpha-lactalbumin than in milk of control mice. Transgenic and control mice produced milk with the same concentrations of lactose, cream, and total solids, and showed similar mammary gland growth, morphology, and histology. Milk from transgenic mice had 0.6% less protein than milk from control mice (P < 0.05). The in vitro lactose synthase activity in mammary gland homogenates from alpha-lactalbumin transgenic mice was increased (P < 0.05), demonstrating that bovine alpha-lactalbumin could interact with murine beta1,4-galactosyltransferase. Pups reared by lactating transgenic mice showed a 4% increase in growth on d 10 of lactation, suggesting that milk production was increased (P = 0.06). Milk volume, estimated using the weigh-suckle-weigh technique, tended to be higher (although not significantly) in transgenic mice (P = 0.11). These results suggest that augmenting alpha-lactalbumin expression in the dam increases the growth of suckling offspring.

Transgenic animal bioreactors

The production of recombinant proteins is one of the major successes of biotechnology. Animal cells are required to synthesize proteins with the appropriate post-translational modifications. Transgenic animals are being used for this purpose. Milk, egg white, blood, urine, seminal plasma and silk worm cocoon from transgenic animals are candidates to be the source of recombinant proteins at an industrial scale. Although the first recombinant protein produced by transgenic animals is expected to be in the market in 2000, a certain number of technical problems remain to be solved before the various systems are optimized. Although the generation of transgenic farm animals has become recently easier mainly with the technique of animal cloning using transfected somatic cells as nuclear donor, this point remains a limitation as far as cost is concerned. Numerous experiments carried out for the last 15 years have shown that the expression of the transgene is predictable only to a limited extent. This is clearly due to the fact that the expression vectors are not constructed in an appropriate manner. This undoubtedly comes from the fact that all the signals contained in genes have not yet been identified. Gene constructions thus result sometime in poorly functional expression vectors. One possibility consists in using long genomic DNA fragments contained in YAC or BAC vectors. The other relies on the identification of the major important elements required to obtain a satisfactory transgene expression. These elements include essentially gene insulators, chromatin openers, matrix attached regions, enhancers and introns. A certain number of proteins having complex structures (formed by several subunits, being glycosylated, cleaved, carboxylated...) have been obtained at levels sufficient for an industrial exploitation. In other cases, the mammary cellular machinery seems insufficient to promote all the post-translational modifications. The addition of genes coding for enzymes involved in protein maturation has been envisaged and successfully performed in one case. Furin gene expressed specifically in the mammary gland proved to able to cleave native human protein C with good efficiency. In a certain number of cases, the recombinant proteins produced in milk have deleterious effects on the mammary gland function or in the animals themselves. This comes independently from ectopic expression of the transgenes and from the transfer of the recombinant proteins from milk to blood. One possibility to eliminate or reduce these side-effects may be to use systems inducible by an exogenous molecule such as tetracycline allowing the transgene to be expressed only during lactation and strictly in the mammary gland. The purification of recombinant proteins from milk is generally not particularly difficult. This may not be the case, however, when the endogenous proteins such as serum albumin or antibodies are abundantly present in milk. This problem may be still more crucial if proteins are produced in blood. Among the biological contaminants potentially present in the recombinant proteins prepared from transgenic animals, prions are certainly those raising the major concern. The selection of animals chosen to generate transgenics on one hand and the elimination of the potentially contaminated animals, thanks to recently defined quite sensitive tests may reduce the risk to an extremely low level. The available techniques to produce pharmaceutical proteins in milk can be used as well to optimize milk composition of farm animals, to add nutriceuticals in milk and potentially to reduce or even eliminate some mammary infectious diseases.

Transgenic dairy cattle: genetic engineering on a large scale

Amid the explosion of fundamental knowledge generated from transgenic animal models, a small group of scientists has been producing transgenic livestock with goals of improving animal production efficiency and generating new products. The ability to modify mammary-specific genes provides an opportunity to pursue several distinctly different avenues of research. The objective of the emerging gene "pharming" industry is to produce pharmaceuticals for treating human diseases. It is argued that mammary glands are an ideal site for producing complex bioactive proteins that can be cost effectively harvested and purified. Consequently, during the past decade, approximately a dozen companies have been created to capture the US market for pharmaceuticals produced from transgenic bioreactors estimated at $3 billion annually. Several products produced in this way are now in human clinical trials. Another research direction, which has been widely discussed but has received less attention in the laboratory, is genetic engineering of the bovine mammary gland to alter the composition of milk destined for human consumption. Proposals include increasing or altering endogenous proteins, decreasing fat, and altering milk composition to resemble that of human milk. Initial studies using transgenic mice to investigate the feasibility of enhancing manufacturing properties of milk have been encouraging. The potential profitability of gene "pharming" seems clear, as do the benefits of transgenic cows producing milk that has been optimized for food products. To take full advantage of enhanced milk, it may be desirable to restructure the method by which dairy producers are compensated. However, the cost of producing functional transgenic cattle will remain a severe limitation to realizing the potential of transgenic cattle until inefficiencies of transgenic technology are overcome. These inefficiencies include low rates of gene integration, poor embryo survival, and unpredictable transgene behavior.

Expression of a bovine kappa-CN cDNA in the mammary gland of transgenic mice utilizing a genomic milk protein gene as an expression cassette

Transgenic mice were produced by microinjection of a DNA construct composed of the bovine kappa-casein (kappa-CN) cDNA under the control of the goat beta-CN 5' promoter elements and 3' flanking regions into pronuclear-stage embryos. The gene construct targeted the expression of bovine kappa-CN RNA to the mammary gland and secretion of bovine kappa-CN in the milk. In the three lines studied (BC-7, BC-31 and BC-67) the transgene was stably integrated and propagated as a Mendelian locus. Expression of the bovine protein in lactating mice from the three transgenic lines was demonstrated by northern and western blots. In ten different tissues analysed by northern blotting, expression was confined to the mammary gland of lactating transgenic mice from line BC-7, with low-level expression also observed in the salivary gland of lines BC-31 and BC-67. Transgene expression in the mammary gland paralleled normal casein gene expression during lactation and was not observed in virgin females. The level of bovine kappa-CN mRNA expression on day 10 of lactation in hemizygous transgenic females in relation to endogenous mRNA of whey acid protein (WAP) gene expression was 14%, 69%, and 127% in lines BC-7, BC-31 and BC-67, respectively. No association between transgene copy number and expression was observed. The bovine kappa-CN concentration in milk on day 10 of lactation ranged from 0.94 to 3.85 mg of protein per ml of milk. The bovine kappa-CN expressed in mouse milk had the same molecular mass and immunoactivity with polyclonal antibodies as did kappa-CN from bovine milk. A high degree of variation in the production of bovine kappa-CN within each of the transgenic lines was observed.

Mammary gland expression of transgenes and the potential for altering the properties of milk

Transgenic animals are a useful in vivo experimental model for assessing the ability and impact of foreign gene expression in a biological system. Transgenic mice are most commonly used, while transgenic sheep, goats, pigs and cows have also been developed for specific, "applied" purposes. Most of the work directed at targeting expression of transgenes to the mammary gland of an animal, by using a milk gene promoter, has been with the intent of either studying promoter function or recovering the desired protein from the milk. Transgenic technology can also be used to alter the functional and physical properties of milk resulting in novel manufacturing properties. The properties of milk have been altered by adding a new protein with the aim of improving the milk, not of recovering the protein for other uses.