| Abstract: | Most cases of ischemic heart disease and stroke occur as a result of atherosclerosis. Thepurpose of this study was to produce a new Nippon Institute for Biological Science (NIBS)miniature pig model by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) for studying atherosclerosis.The human apolipoprotein(a) (apo(a)) genes were transfected into kidney epithelial cellsderived from a male and a female piglet. Male cells were used as donors initially, and 275embryos were transferred to surrogates. Three offspring were delivered, and the productionefficiency was 1.1% (3/275). Serial female cells were injected into 937 enucleatedoocytes. Eight offspring were delivered (production efficiency: 0.9%) from surrogates. Onemale and 2 female transgenic miniature pigs matured well. Lipoprotein(a) was found in themale and one of the female transgenic animals. These results demonstrate successfulproduction of human apo(a) transgenic NIBS miniature pigs by SCNT. Our goal is toestablish a human apo(a) transgenic NIBS miniature pig colony for studyingatherosclerosis. |
