Publikationsdatenbank

Health status of transgenic pigs expressing the human complement regulatory protein CD59 (2006)

Art

Zeitschriftenartikel / wissenschaftlicher Beitrag

Autoren

Deppenmeier, Stefanie

Bock, Oliver

Mengel, Michael

Niemann, Heiner

Kues, Wilfried

Lemme, Erika

Wirth, Dagmar

Wonigeit, Kurt

Kreipe, Hans

Quelle

Xenotransplantation : the official journal of the International Xenotransplantation Association, a section of The Transplantation Society

Bandzählung: 13

Heftzählung: 4

Seiten: 345 – 356

ISSN: 1399-3089

Sprache

Englisch

Verweise

Pubmed: 16768728

Kontakt

Institut für Tierpathologie

Robert-von-Ostertag-Str. 15
14163 Berlin
+49 30 838 62450
pathologie@vetmed.fu-berlin.de

Abstract / Zusammenfassung

Microinjection of foreign DNA into pronuclei of zygotes has been the method of choice for the production of transgenic domestic animals. Following microinjection the transgene is randomly integrated into the host genome which can be associated with insertional mutagenesis and unwanted pathological side effects.

Here, we evaluated the health status of pigs transgenic for the human regulator of complement activation (RCA) CD59 and conducted a complete pathomorphological examination on 19 RCA transgenic pigs at 1 to 32 months of age from nine transgenic lines. Nine wild-type animals served as controls. Expression levels of human complement regulator CD59 (hCD59) mRNA were measured by RT-PCR and distribution of hCD59 protein was determined by immunohistochemistry.

Albeit variable transgene expression levels, no specific pathomorphologic phenotype associated with the presence of the transgene in all analyzed pig lines could be detected.

Transgenic expression of this human RCA gene construct is not correlated with a specific pathological phenotype in pigs. This is crucial for the application of the technology and the use of transgenic pigs for biomedical and agricultural applications.