The meganuclease I-SceI containing nuclear localization signal (NLS-I-SceI) efficiently mediated mammalian germline transgenesis via embryo cytoplasmic microinjection

PLoS One. 2014 Sep 24;9(9):e108347. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0108347. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

The meganuclease I-SceI has been effectively used to facilitate transgenesis in fish eggs for nearly a decade. I-SceI-mediated transgenesis is simply via embryo cytoplasmic microinjection and only involves plasmid vectors containing I-SceI recognition sequences, therefore regarding the transgenesis process and application of resulted transgenic organisms, I-SceI-mediated transgenesis is of minimal bio-safety concerns. However, currently no transgenic mammals derived from I-SceI-mediated transgenesis have been reported. In this work, we found that the native I-SceI molecule was not capable of facilitating transgenesis in mammalian embryos via cytoplasmic microinjection as it did in fish eggs. In contrast, the I-SceI molecule containing mammalian nuclear localization signal (NLS-I-SceI) was shown to be capable of transferring DNA fragments from cytoplasm into nuclear in porcine embryos, and cytoplasmic microinjection with NLS-I-SceI mRNA and circular I-SceI recognition sequence-containing transgene plasmids resulted in transgene expression in both mouse and porcine embryos. Besides, transfer of the cytoplasmically microinjected mouse and porcine embryos into synchronized recipient females both efficiently resulted in transgenic founders with germline transmission competence. These results provided a novel method to facilitate mammalian transgenesis using I-SceI, and using the NLS-I-SceI molecule, a simple, efficient and species-neutral transgenesis technology based on embryo cytoplasmic microinjection with minimal bio-safety concerns can be established for mammalian species. As far as we know, this is the first report for transgenic mammals derived from I-SceI-mediated transgenesis via embryo cytoplasmic microinjection.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Animals, Genetically Modified
  • Cytoplasm / genetics*
  • Deoxyribonucleases, Type II Site-Specific / genetics*
  • Deoxyribonucleases, Type II Site-Specific / metabolism
  • Embryo Culture Techniques
  • Embryo, Mammalian
  • Female
  • Gene Transfer Techniques / veterinary*
  • Mice / embryology
  • Mice / genetics
  • Microinjections / methods*
  • Nuclear Localization Signals / genetics*
  • Nuclear Localization Signals / metabolism
  • Oocytes / metabolism*
  • Swine
  • Swine, Miniature / embryology
  • Swine, Miniature / genetics

Substances

  • Nuclear Localization Signals
  • Deoxyribonucleases, Type II Site-Specific

Grants and funding

YW was supported by grants from Natural Science Fund of China [31171280, 31271330], National 973 Project of China [2011CB944102], Chongqing Natural Science Fund [cstc2011jjA10049]. HW was supported by grants from Natural Science Fund of China [81173126], National 973 Project of China [2011CBA01006] and National Science and Technology Support Program [2011BAI15BO2]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.