Cloned goats (Gapra hircus) from foetal fibroblast cell lines

Mammalian cloning has been one of the most active research topics in the world. Cloning within vitro culured foetal fibroblast cells, in comparison with embryonic cells, can be used not only to theoretically study the embryonic or cellular development and differentiation in mammals, but also to utilize the unlimited fibroblast cells to produce large numbers of clonings. The preliminary results are as follows: (i) The division and development of the cloned embryos with embryonic donor cells and goat foetal fibroblast donor cells were 55%, 77% and 35%, 31%, respectively. There is no significant statistical difference between them, (ii) These studies result in the birth of two cloned goats derived from two 30-day foetal fibroblast cell lines, which are the first cloned mammals from somatic cells in China. This project has established a technological data base for the furture research on adult mammalian somatic cloning and nucleocytoplasmic interactions in animal development, and a novel technique for the cloning of animals with a high-level expression of transgene(s).