325 CHARACTERIZATION OF PRIMED PORCINE PLURIPOTENT STEM CELL LINES DERIVED FROM VARIOUS ORIGINS INCLUDING iPS-NT
Pigs are significant as a disease model in translational research. However, authentic porcine embryonic stem cells (ESC) have not yet been established showing limited capacities until now. In this study, a total of 7 primed ESC lines were derived from porcine embryos of various origins, including in vitro-fertilized (IVF), parthenogenetic activation (PA), and nuclear transfer (iPS-NT) from a donor cell with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). We observed typical morphology, intensive alkaline phosphatase activity, and normal karyotype in all pESC lines. Also, the expression of pluripotency markers such as OCT4, Sox2, NANOG, SSEA4, TRA 1–60, and TRA 1–81 was shown in our pESC. We investigated expression of key markers of lineage commitment to confirm the differentiation potentials of the 7 cell lines to formation of EB and all 3 germ layers, such as AFP (endoderm), DESMIN (mesoderm), and CRABP2 (ectoderm) by RT-PCR and Cytokeratin 17 (endoderm), Desmin (mesoderm), and Vimentin (ectoderm) by immunofluorescence analysis. We also examined the XIST gene expression and nuclear H3K27me3 foci from all female cell lines for analysing epigenetic characteristics. Furthermore, we classified 2 colony types (normal and transformed colony) and 3 subpopulations of ES cells composed of transformed colonies with intrinsic morphological characteristics: petaloid rapidly self-renewing cells, small spindle-shaped cells, and large flattened cells. This result will help to approach the goal for establishing authentic naive pluripotent stem cells in pigs and it will make possible sophisticated genetic manipulation to create ideal animal models for preclinical research and studies of human diseases.This work was supported, in part, by a grant from the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant Government (NRF-2012R1A1A4A01004885, NRF-2013R1A2A2A04008751), Republic of Korea.