scholarly journals Improved Experimental Procedures for Achieving Efficient Germ Line Transmission of Nonobese Diabetic (NOD)-Derived Embryonic Stem Cells

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 219-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Satoko Arai ◽  
Christina Minjares ◽  
Seiho Nagafuchi ◽  
Toru Miyazaki

The manipulation of a specific gene in NOD mice, the best animal model for insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM), must allow for the precise characterization of the functional involvement of its encoded molecule in the pathogenesis of the disease. Although this has been attempted by the cross-breeding of NOD mice with many gene knockout mice originally created on the 129 or C57BL/6 strain background, the interpretation of the resulting phenotype(s) has often been confusing due to the possibility of a known or unknown disease susceptibility locus (e.g.,Iddlocus) cosegregating with the targeted gene from the diabetes-resistant strain. Therefore, it is important to generate mutant mice on a pure NOD background by using NOD-derived embryonic stem (ES) cells. By using the NOD ES cell line established by Nagafuchi and colleagues in 1999 (FEBSLett., 455, 101–104), the authors reexamined various conditions in the context of cell culture, DNA transfection, and blastocyst injection, and achieved a markedly improved transmission efficiency of these NOD ES cells into the mouse germ line. These modifications will enable gene targeting on a “pure” NOD background with high efficiency, and contribute to clarifying the physiological roles of a variety of genes in the disease course of IDDM.

eLife ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yick W Fong ◽  
Jaclyn J Ho ◽  
Carla Inouye ◽  
Robert Tjian

Acquisition of pluripotency is driven largely at the transcriptional level by activators OCT4, SOX2, and NANOG that must in turn cooperate with diverse coactivators to execute stem cell-specific gene expression programs. Using a biochemically defined in vitro transcription system that mediates OCT4/SOX2 and coactivator-dependent transcription of the Nanog gene, we report the purification and identification of the dyskerin (DKC1) ribonucleoprotein complex as an OCT4/SOX2 coactivator whose activity appears to be modulated by a subset of associated small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs). The DKC1 complex occupies enhancers and regulates the expression of key pluripotency genes critical for self-renewal in embryonic stem (ES) cells. Depletion of DKC1 in fibroblasts significantly decreased the efficiency of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell generation. This study thus reveals an unanticipated transcriptional role of the DKC1 complex in stem cell maintenance and somatic cell reprogramming.


1989 ◽  
Vol 169 (5) ◽  
pp. 1669-1680 ◽  
Author(s):  
C Boitard ◽  
R Yasunami ◽  
M Dardenne ◽  
J F Bach

The nonobese diabetic (NOD) mouse has recently been introduced as a model for insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. The role of regulatory T cells in the development of antipancreatic autoimmunity in this model remains unclear. To evaluate the presence of suppressive phenomena, we used disease transfer by spleen cells from diabetic NOD mice into preirradiated adult recipients as a model for accelerated disease. Suppressor phenomena were detected by testing the protection afforded by lymphoid cells from nondiabetic NOD mice against diabetes transfer in irradiated recipients. Transfer of diabetes was delayed by reconstituting recipients with spleen cells from nondiabetic NOD donors. The greatest protection against diabetes transfer was conferred by spleen cells from 8-wk-old nondiabetic female NOD mice. Depletion experiments showed that the protection was dependent on CD4+ cells. Protection was also detected within thymic cells from nondiabetic NOD mice and protection conferred by spleen cells was abrogated by thymectomy of nondiabetic female, but not male, NOD donors at 3 wk of age. These findings indicate that suppressive CD4+ T cells that are dependent on the presence of the thymus may delay the onset of diabetes in female diabetes-prone NOD mice.


1990 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 6755-6758
Author(s):  
B R Stanton ◽  
S W Reid ◽  
L F Parada

We have disrupted one allele of the N-myc locus in mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells by using homologous recombination techniques and have obtained germ line transmission of null N-myc ES cell lines with transmission of the null N-myc allele to the offspring. The creation of mice with a deficient N-myc allele will allow the generation of offspring bearing null N-myc alleles in both chromosomes and permit study of the role that this proto-oncogene plays in embryonic development.


Development ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 129 (2) ◽  
pp. 539-549 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie A. Adelman ◽  
Subrata Chattopadhyay ◽  
James J. Bieker

Erythroid cell-specific gene regulation during terminal differentiation is controlled by transcriptional regulators, such as EKLF and GATA1, that themselves exhibit tissue-restricted expression patterns. Their early expression, already in evidence within multipotential hematopoietic cell lines, has made it difficult to determine what extracellular effectors and transduction mechanisms might be directing the onset of their own transcription during embryogenesis. To circumvent this problem, we have taken the novel approach of investigating whether the ability of embryonic stem (ES) cells to mimic early developmental patterns of cellular expression during embryoid body (EB) differentiation can address this issue. We first established conditions whereby EBs could form efficiently in the absence of serum. Surprisingly, in addition to mesoderm, these cells expressed hemangioblast and hematopoietic markers. However, they did not express the committed erythroid markers EKLF and GATA1, nor the terminally differentiated β-like globin markers. Using this system, we determined that EB differentiation in BMP4 was necessary and sufficient to recover EKLF and GATA1 expression and could be further stimulated by the inclusion of VEGF, SCF, erythropoietin and thyroid hormone. EBs were competent to respond to BMP4 only until day 4 of differentiation, which coincides with the normal onset of EKLF expression. The direct involvement of the BMP/Smad pathway in this induction process was further verified by showing that erythroid expression of a dominant negative BMP1B receptor or of the inhibitory Smad6 protein prevented induction of EKLF or GATA1 even in the presence of serum. Although Smad1, Smad5 and Smad8 are all expressed in the EBs, BMP4 induction of EKLF and GATA1 transcription is not immediate. These data implicate the BMP/Smad induction system as being a crucial pathway to direct the onset of EKLF and GATA1 expression during hematopoietic differentiation and demonstrate that EB differentiation can be manipulated to study induction of specific genes that are expressed early within a lineage.


1991 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 4509-4517
Author(s):  
P Hasty ◽  
J Rivera-Pérez ◽  
C Chang ◽  
A Bradley

Gene targeting has been used to direct mutations into specific chromosomal loci in murine embryonic stem (ES) cells. The altered locus can be studied in vivo with chimeras and, if the mutated cells contribute to the germ line, in their offspring. Although homologous recombination is the basis for the widely used gene targeting techniques, to date, the mechanism of homologous recombination between a vector and the chromosomal target in mammalian cells is essentially unknown. Here we look at the nature of gene targeting in ES cells by comparing an insertion vector with replacement vectors that target hprt. We found that the insertion vector targeted up to ninefold more frequently than a replacement vector with the same length of homologous sequence. We also observed that the majority of clones targeted with replacement vectors did not recombine as predicted. Analysis of the recombinant structures showed that the external heterologous sequences were often incorporated into the target locus. This observation can be explained by either single reciprocal recombination (vector insertion) of a recircularized vector or double reciprocal recombination/gene conversion (gene replacement) of a vector concatemer. Thus, single reciprocal recombination of an insertion vector occurs 92-fold more frequently than double reciprocal recombination of a replacement vector with crossover junctions on both the long and short arms.


2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (9) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
J. Antony ◽  
F. Oback ◽  
R. Broadhurst ◽  
S. Cole ◽  
C. Graham ◽  
...  

To produce live cloned mammals from adult somatic cells the nuclei of these cells must be first reprogrammed from a very restricted, cell lineage-specific gene expression profile to an embryo-like expression pattern, compatible with embryonic development. Although this has been achieved in a number of species the efficiency of cloning remains very low. Inadequate reprogramming of epigenetic marks in the donor cells correlated with aberrant embryonic gene expression profiles has been identified as a key cause of this inefficiency. Some of the most common epigenetic marks are chemical modifications of histones, the main structural proteins of chromatin. A range of different histone modifications, including acetylation and methylation, exists and can be attributed to either repression or activation of genes. One epigenetic mark which is known to be very stable and difficult to remove during reprogramming is the trimethylation of lysine 9 in histone H3 (H3K9Me3). To test the hypothesis that H3K9Me3 marks are a major stumbling block for successful cloning we are attempting to remove these marks by overexpression of the H3K9Me3 specific histone demethylase, jmjd2b, in donor cells, prior to their use for nuclear transfer. We have engineered mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells for the tet inducible expression of a fusion protein with a functional jmjd2b or non-functional mutant jmjd2b histone demethylase. Approximately 94% and 88% of the cells can be induced for the expression of functional and mutant jmjd2b-EGFP in the respective ES cell lines. Immunofluorescence analyses have shown that induction of functional jmjd2b-EGFP results in an approximately 50% reduction of H3K9Me3 levels compared to non-induced cells and induced mutant jmjd2b-EGFP cells. The comparison of the in-vitro embryo development following nuclear transfer with induced and non-induced donor cells show significantly better overall development to blastocysts and morulae from induced donor cells with reduced H3K9Me3 levels.


Reproduction ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 135 (6) ◽  
pp. 771-784 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fariborz Izadyar ◽  
Francis Pau ◽  
Joel Marh ◽  
Natalia Slepko ◽  
Tracy Wang ◽  
...  

Spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) maintain spermatogenesis by self-renewal and generation of spermatogonia committed to differentiation. Under certain in vitro conditions, SSCs from both neonatal and adult mouse testis can reportedly generate multipotent germ cell (mGC) lines that have characteristics and differentiation potential similar to embryonic stem (ES) cells. However, mGCs generated in different laboratories showed different germ cell characteristics, i.e., some retain their SSC properties and some have lost them completely. This raises an important question: whether mGC lines have been generated from different subpopulations in the mouse testes. To unambiguously identify and track germ line stem cells, we utilized a transgenic mouse model expressing green fluorescence protein under the control of a germ cell-specific Pou5f1 (Oct4) promoter. We found two distinct populations among the germ line stem cells with regard to their expression of transcription factor Pou5f1 and c-Kit receptor. Only the POU5F1+/c-Kit+ subset of mouse germ line stem cells, when isolated from either neonatal or adult testes and cultured in a complex mixture of growth factors, generates cell lines that express pluripotent ES markers, i.e., Pou5f1, Nanog, Sox2, Rex1, Dppa5, SSEA-1, and alkaline phosphatase, exhibit high telomerase activity, and differentiate into multiple lineages, including beating cardiomyocytes, neural cells, and chondrocytes. These data clearly show the existence of two distinct populations within germ line stem cells: one destined to become SSC and the other with the ability to generate multipotent cell lines with some pluripotent characteristics. These findings raise interesting questions about the relativity of pluripotency and the plasticity of germ line stem cells.


1996 ◽  
Vol 184 (5) ◽  
pp. 2049-2053 ◽  
Author(s):  
D V Serreze ◽  
H D Chapman ◽  
D S Varnum ◽  
M S Hanson ◽  
P C Reifsnyder ◽  
...  

The T lymphocytes mediating autoimmune destruction of pancreatic beta cells in the nonobese diabetic (NOD) mouse model of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) may be generated due to functional defects in hematopoietically derived antigen-presenting cells (APC). However, it has not been clear which particular subpopulations of APC (B lymphocytes, macrophages, and dendritic cells) contribute to the development and activation of diabetogenic T cells in NOD mice. In the current study we utilized a functionally inactivated immunoglobulin (Ig) mu allele (Ig mu null) to generate a "speed congenic" stock of B lymphocyte-deficient NOD mice that are fixed for linkage markers delineating previously identified diabetes susceptibility (Idd) genes. These B lymphocyte NOD.Ig mu null mice had normal numbers of T cells but were free of overt IDDM and insulitis resistant, while the frequency of disease in the B lymphocyte intact segregants was equivalent to that of standard NOD mice in our colony. Thus, B lymphocytes play a heretofore unrecognized role that is essential for the initial development and/or activation of beta cell autoreactive T cells in NOD mice.


1997 ◽  
Vol 186 (12) ◽  
pp. 2039-2043 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jide Tian ◽  
Paul V. Lehmann ◽  
Daniel L. Kaufman

The nature (Th1 versus Th2) and dynamics of the autoimmune response during the development of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) and after immunotherapy are unclear. Here, we show in nonobese diabetic (NOD) mice that the autoreactive T cell response starts and spreads as a pure Th1 type autoimmunity, suggesting that a spontaneous Th1 cascade underlies disease progression. Surprisingly, induction of antiinflammatory Th2 responses to a single β cell antigen (βCA) resulted in the spreading of Th2 cellular and humoral immunity to unrelated βCAs in an infectious manner and protection from IDDM. The data suggest that both Th1 and Th2 autoimmunity evolve in amplificatory cascades by generating site-specific, but not antigen-specific, positive feedback circuits. Determinant spreading of Th2 responses may be a fundamental mechanism underlying antigen-based immunotherapeutics, explaining observations of infectious tolerance and providing a new theoretical framework for therapeutic intervention.


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