LIF-Dependent, Pluripotent Stem Cells Established from Inner Cell Mass of Porcine Embryos. Sus scrofa

The pig is important for agriculture and as an animal model in human and veterinary medicine, yet, despite over 20 years of effort, it has proved a difficult species from which to generate pluripotent stem cells analogous to those derived from mouse embryos. Here we report the production of LIF-dependent, so called naïve type, pluripotent stem cells from the inner cell mass of porcine blastocysts by up-regulating expression of KLF4 and POU5F1. These cells resemble mouse ES cells and are distinct from the FGF2-dependent, induced pluripotent cell type derived from porcine somatic cells. High throughput SNP chip genotyping was conducted on Illumina's Porcine SNP60 BeadChip (WG-410, a service provided by Geneseek, NE, http://www.neogen.com/GeneSeek/). The results exhibited that the two lines pluripotent stem cells from the inner cell mass of porcine blastocysts were porcine origin and genetically distinct. Overall design: Porcine pluripotent stem cells were derived from the inner cell mass with transduction with human KLF4 by lentiviral transduction.