Production of Cloned-like Chicken by Allogeneic Transplantation of Somatic Cells Induced Primordial Germ Cells

Generation of genetically uniformed individuals from somatic cells is an effective approach for large-scale reproduction of elite varieties and a powerful tool for restoration of endangered species. However, this technique has never been realized in avian due to their oviparous reproduction pattern. In this study, we produced cloned-like chicken by allogeneic transplantation of somatic cells induced primordial germ cells (PGCs). Oct4, Sox2, Nanog and Lin28A (OSNL) factors were employed to reprogram primary chicken embryo fibroblasts (CEF) to pluripotent stem cells (iPS), in which DNA demethylation and histone acetylation were found to increase the efficiency to 13.00%. The obtained iPS presented embryonic stem cell like characters and were further induced to PGCs by BMP4/BMP8b/EGF, in which histone acetylation and glycolysis inhibition elevated the induction rate to 17.30% and 16.41%, respectively. With the optimized system, we induced Black Langshan Chicken (Gallus domestiaus, black feather) donated CEF to PGCs and transplanted them into the Recessive White Chicken (white feather) embryos. The transplanted cells migrated into the genital ridges and produced functional sperm or oocytes. The sexual matured recipients were self-crossed, with 189/509 (37.13%) cloned-like chicken produced. Microsatellite analysis confirmed their DNA inheritance from the black donor chicken. Thus, we demonstrated, for the first time, the feasibility of avian cloning from somatic cells.