• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.67-76
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• 2008

Since the birth of Dolly using fully differentiated somatic cells as a nuclear donor, viable clones were generated successfully in many mammalian species. These achievements in animal cloning demonstrate developmental potential of terminally differentiated somatic cells. At the same time, the somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) technique provides the opportunities to study basic and applied biosciences. However, the efficiency generating viable offsprings by SCNT remains extremely low. There are several explanations why cloned embryos cannot fully develop into viable animals and what factors affect developmental potency of reconstructed embryos by the SCNT technique. The most critical and persuasive explanation for inefficiency in SCNT cloning is incomplete genomic reprogramming, such as DNA methylation and histone modification. Numerous studies on genomic reprogramming demonstrated that incorrect DNA methylation and aberrant epigenetic reprogramming are considerably correlated with abnormal development of SCNT cloned embryos even though its mechanism is not fully understood. The SCNT technique is useful in cloning farm animals because pluripotent stem cells are not established in farm animal species. Therapeutic cloning combined with genetic manipulation will help to control various human diseases. Also, the SCNT technique provides a chance to overcome excessive demand for the organs by production of transgenic animals as xenotransplantation resources. Here, we describe the factors affecting the efficiency of generating cloned farm animals by the SCNT technique and discuss future directions of animal cloning by SCNT to improve the cloning efficiency.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Developmental Biology Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.29-48
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• 2003

It is remarkable that nuclear transfer using differentiated donor cells can produce physiologically normal cloned animals, but the process is inefficient and highly prone to epigenetic errors. Aberrant patterns of gene expression in clones contribute to the cumulative losses and abnormal phenotypes observed throughout development. Any long lasting effects from cloning, as revealed in some mouse studies, need to be comprehensively evaluated in cloned livestock. These issues raise animal welfare concerns that currently limit the acceptability and applicability of the technology. It is expected that improved reprogramming of the donor genome will increase cloning efficiencies realising a wide range of new agricultural and medical opportunities. Efficient cloning potentially enables rapid dissemination of elite genotypes from nucleus herds to commercial producers. Initial commercialization will, however, focus on producing small numbers of high value animals for natural breeding especially clones of progeny-tested sires, The continual advances in animal genomics towards the identification of genes that influence livestock production traits and human health increase the ability to genetically modify animals to enhance agricultural efficiency and produce superior quality food and biomedical products for niche markets. The potential opportunities in animal agriculture are more challenging than those in biomedicine as they require greater biological efficiency at reduced cost to be economically viable and because of the more difficult consumer acceptance issues. Nevertheless, cloning and transgenesis are being used together to increase the genetic merit of livestock; however, the integration of this technology into farming systems remains some distance in the future.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Embryo Transfer Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.29-48
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• 2003

It is remarkable that nuclear transfer using differentiated donor cells can produce physiologically normal cloned animals, but the process is inefficient and highly prone to epigenetic errors. Aberrant patterns of gene expression in clones contribute to the cumulative losses and abnormal phenotypes observed throughout development. Any long lasting effects from cloning, as revealed in some mouse studies, need to be comprehensively evaluated in cloned livestock. These issues raise animal welfare concerns that currently limit the acceptability and applicability of the technology. It is expected that improved reprogramming of the donor genome will increase cloning efficiencies realising a wide range of new agricultural and medical opportunities. Efficient cloning potentially enables rapid dissemination of elite genotypes from nucleus herds to commercial producers. Initial commercialisation will, however, focus on producing small numbers of high value animals for natural breeding especially clones of progeny-tested sires. The continual advances in animal genomics towards the identification of genes that influence livestock production traits and human health increase the ability to genetically modify animals to enhance agricultural efficiency and produce superior quality food and biomedical products for niche markets. The potential opportunities inanimal agriculture are more challenging than those in biomedicine as they require greater biological efficiency at reduced cost to be economically viable and because of the more difficult consumer acceptance issues. Nevertheless, cloning and transgenesis are being used together to increase the genetic merit of livestock; however, the integration of this technology into farming systems remains some distance in the future.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.155-161
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• 2015

The number of wild animal species is gradually decreasing due to poaching, hunting and habitat loss. While several endangered animal species have been successfully preserved at the zoo, assisted reproductive technology (ART) must be applied to restore wild animals. In the case of critically endangered animals, somatic cell cloning is considered the most appropriate method of ART. Somatic cell cloning can be beneficial for the reproduction of endangered species with limited female populations. However, gene and cell banks, and understanding of reproductive physiology and optimization of ART for wild animals are urgently required for further activation of artificial reproduction of endangered species, which enlarges its application and maintains biodiversity. Care should also be taken to consider ethical and legal issues associated with somatic cell cloning for conservation of endangered animals.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Embryo Transfer Conference
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• 1998.05a
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• pp.12-28
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• 1998

The technology of creating transgenic animals has a potential value in improving productivity and disease resistance of animals, gene therapy, drug pharming and production of model animals for certain diseases. Up to date, fairly low success rate of production of transgenic animals and a pronounced variability with respect to the expression of transgenes have been much observed. The mechanisms how to integrate the injected genes with a certain part of the genomes are unknown yet. Many techniques in gene transfer, beside microinjection, have been introduced and explored thus to improve the production efficiency of transgenic animals. In this article, the methods and efficiency of gene-transfer techniques, the detection and preselection of transgenes in embryos by PCR- and GFP-screenings and cloning of preselected transgenic embryos by nuclear transplantation are described and discussed. Some experimental results showed that the early screening and selection of integration of the injected gene with embryonic genome by polymerase chain reaction(PCR) and green fluorecence protein(GFP) were promising methods. Further, the application of nuclear transplantation technology to cloning and multiplication of the positively integrated genes in the cleaving embryos and embryonic cells will be beneficially used for the mass production of transgenic embryos and consequently improving the production efficiency in transgenic animals.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.163-176
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• 1999

The nuclear transplantation technique is known as the most potential and efficient method for producing large numbers of genetically identical animals from a single embryo and somatic cells. After Dolly was introduced in 1997, many scientists were amazed. A possibility came to a reality that live offspring could be produced with differentiated somatic cells from an adult animal. On the other side, many in the press and the sensationalists focused on the socially, ethically and scientifically unacceptable sides of the technology. In this article, the history, current status and prospects of the technological development of nuclear transplantation in mammals and its application to the production of cloned animals are described. For the efficient and successful production of cloned embryos by nuclear transplantation, the right selection, preactivation and micromanipulation of oocytes as capacious recipient cytoplasm, the adequate and benefitial preparation of multiple totipotent embryonic and somatic cells as donor nuclei, fusion of them and in vitro production of cloned embryos are very critical. Recently the overall efficiency of production of cloned embryos and offspring in livestock has been much improved. Cloning will also be a more efficient, faster and useful way of creating transgenic fetuses for gene therapies, gene pharming, organs for xenotransplantation by preselection and mass production of transgenic embryos and consequently improving the production efficiency in transgenic animals. Further technical development of nuclear transplantation will enable large-scale production of cloned livestock and in near future the commercial cloning of animals will become a reality.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.389-395
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• 2012

Cloned animals are a result of asexual reproduction of animals using somatic cell nuclear transfer. Ever since the first report of a cloned sheep 'Dolly' produced by SCNT, increasing numbers of livestock, such as bovine and swine clones, have been generated worldwide. Foods derived from cloned animals have not been produced yet. However, the food safety of cloned animals has provoked controversy. The EU Food Safety Authority and U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that milk and meat from cloned and non-cloned animals have no difference regarding food safety. However, food derived from cloned animals is considered unsuitable for eating vaguely. Moreover, there were scant information about cloned animals in Korea. Therefore, we surveyed the number of cloned animals worldwide including Korea and summarized the reports for cloned animals and discussed predictable problems.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.1026-1034
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• 2000

As described here, most recently developed methods for improving reproduction performance of domesticated animals such as cattle, swine and chicken have been considered to be also usable for restoring some sorts of endangered and/or extinct wild animals in the very near future. Especially, the techniques for in vitro storage of gametes obtained from dead animals shortly after the death, probably 24 h following the sacrifice are also available for obtaining some of experimental specimens. In case of the endangered animals, nobody will be allowed to use any tissues from the living animals, therefore, e.g., the use of skin tissues from these bodies is another possibility of restoring the living animals. Regarding the use of skin tissues, the most highly usable tools must be the cloning techniques for reviving rare cells from the living body. Most possible techniques for cloning cells is nuclear transfer from rare species to highly relative species, and this is the case of germ cells, e.g., primordial germ cells (PGCs) of avian species. One of the possibilities is the nuclear transfer of Crested Ibis (Nipponia nippon) to the PGCs of chicken, resulting in the PGCs with transferred nucleus from the ibis. In mammalian species, the same procedure as in the case of birds would be successful, e.g., the removed nucleus from Giant Pandas will be transferred to the cell, such as somatic cells or germ cells from black bears or lesser pandas, leading to the production of transnucleared cells in the body of female black bears. These two cases are most promising techniques for reviving endangered animals in the world, particularly in Asian countries, mainly in China. As a conclusion, possible production of cloned animals carrying transnucleared cells from endangered animals, such as Giant Pandas and Crested Ibis, may be reproduced gradually in the near future. Scientists are, therefore, required to convert the paradigm from domestic animals to wild animals, including endangered and/or extinct animals on the earth.

• Korean Journal of Animal Reproduction
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.393-398
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• 1999

Somatic cell nuclear transfer is an efficient technique for the multiplication of elite livestock, engineering of transgenic animals, cell therapy and xenotransplantation, and analyzing the interactions between nucleus and cytoplasm, for various agricultural, biomedical and research purposes. Since the first somatic cell clone lamb was born, tremendous progress has been made toward developing technology for animal cloning. Viable farm animals and mice have now been produced by nuclear transfer using various fetal and adult somatic cells as nuclei donors. Transgenic clones were also produced from nuclear transfer of transfected somatic cells. In the future, somatic cell nuclear transfer will provide more numerous opportunities, both in basic and appled research as well as immediate uses in the generations of superior clone and transgenic animals. However, further technology refinement and improved understanding of the process are essential for commercial and basic research applications.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Developmental Biology Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.37-43
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• 2001

1. About fifty thousand of cattle embryos were transferred and 16000 ET-calves were born in 1999. Eighty percents of embryos were collected from Japanese Black beef donors and transferred to dairy Holstein heifers and cows. Since 1985, we have achieved in bovine in vitro fertilization using immature oocytes collected from ovaries of slaughterhouse. Now over 8000 embryos fertilized by Japanese Black bull, as Kitaguni 7~8 or Mitsufuku, famousbulls as high marbling score of progeny tests were sold to dairy farmers and transferred to their dairy cattle every year. 2. Embryo splitting for identical twins is demonstrated an useful tool to supply a bull for semen collection and a steer for beef performance test. According to the data of Dr. Hashiyada(2001), 296 pairs of split-half embryos were transferred to recipients and 98 gave births of 112 calves (23 pairs of identical twins and 66 singletons). 3. A blastomere-nuclear-transferred cloned calf was born in 1990 by a joint research with Drs. Tsunoda, National Institute of Animal Industry (NIAI) and Ushijima, Chiba Prefectural Farm Animal Center. The fruits of this technology were applied to the production of a calf from a cell of long-term-cultured inner cell mass (1988, Itoh et al, ZEN-NOH Central Research Institute for Feed and Livestock) and a cloned calf from three-successive-cloning (1997, Tsunoda et al.). According to the survey of MAFF of Japan, over 500 calves were born until this year and a glaf of them were already brought to the market for beef. 4. After the report of "Dolly", in February 1997, the first somatic cell clone female calves were born in July 1998 as the fruits of the joint research organized by Dr. Tsunoda in Kinki University (Kato et al, 2000). The male calves were born in August and September 1998 by the collaboration with NIAI and Kagoshima Prefecture. Then 244 calves, four pigs and a kid of goat were now born in 36 institutes of Japan. 5. Somatic cell cloning in farm animal production will bring us as effective reproductive method of elite-dairy- cows, super-cows and excellent bulls. The effect of making copy farm animal is also related to the reservation of genetic resources and re-creation of a male bull from a castrated steer of excellent marbling beef. Cloning of genetically modified animals is most promising to making pig organs transplant to people and providing protein drugs in milk of pig, goat and cattle. 6. Farm animal cloning is one of the most dreamful technologies of 21th century. It is necessary to develop this technology more efficient and stable as realistic technology of the farm animal production. We are making researches related to the best condition of donor cells for high productivity of cloning, genetic analysis of cloned animals, growth and performance abilities of clone cattle and pathological and genetical analysis of high rates of abortion and stillbirth of clone calves (about 30% of periparutum mortality). 7. It is requested in the report of Ministry of Health, labor and Welfare to make clear that carbon-copy cattle(somatic cell clone cattle) are safe and heathy for a commercial market since the somatic cell cloning is a completely new technology. Fattened beef steers (well-proved normal growth) and milking cows(shown a good fertility) are now provided for the assessment of food safety.