Section of Mammalian Transgenesis
Member
Development of Advanced Reproductive / Transgenic Technologies in Laboratory Animals
Genetically modified animals such as transgenic and knockout animals are essential tools for current life science research. In particular, recent progress on gene editing technologies including CRISPR/Cas9 system has enabled us to generate desired such animals more efficiently and rapidly. Our facility, Section of Mammalian Transgenesis, routinely generates a variety of genetically modified mice and rats according to requests from internal and external laboratories. In addition, we have developed novel reproductive and developmental technologies using early rodent embryos and the stem cells. One of our current projects is an application of our techniques to regenerative medicine. Recently, as a collaborative research, we have established “blastocyst complementation” method which can create a specific organ from pluripotent stem cells in organ-deficient animals. Through developing new technologies and generating model animals in various mammalian species, we aim to understand the underlying mechanisms on stem cell self-renewal/differentiation, early embryo development and organogenesis, which would contribute to future regenerative medicine as well as life science research.
Fig.1 Generation of mouse sperm/spermatids derived from mouse iPS cells in the rat body.
A) Xenogeneic chimeric rats are generated by injecting green-mouse iPS cells into blastocysts of Prdm14-deficient rats that cannot produce germ cells. Microinsemination technique is applied to produce mouse pups.
B) Testicular tissue of the xenogeneic chimera. All germ cells were derived from mouse iPS cells, while supporting cells surrounding the seminiferous tubules had host rat origin.
Selected publications
*T. Kobayashi et al., Cell Rep. 37, 109812 (2021).*T. Kobayashi et al., Nat Commun. 12, 1328 (2021).
*T. Kobayashi et al., Development. 147, e183798 (2020).
*T. Goto et al., Nat Commun. 10, 451 (2019).
*M. Hirabayashi and S. Hochi, Methods Mol Biol. 1874, 313 (2019).