ABSTRACT
Gene targeting is a more powerful method to produce mammary gland bioreactor and nuclear transfer from cultured somatic cells provides an wonderful means of cell-mediated transgensis. Here we describe an efficient and reproducible gene targeting in goat mammary epithelium cell to place the GFP and neo at the beta-casein locus. The transgenic goat would be produced by nuclear transfer. To construct the gene targeting vector pGBC-GFP-neo, the milk goat beta-casein genomic DNA sequence for homologous arms was cloned first. The left arm was 2.1 kb fragment including goat beta-casein gene exon1 and part of exon 2, and the right arm was 5.1 kb fragment including beta-casein gene from exon 7 to 3'-flanking sequence. The bacterial neomycin (neo) gene as positive selection marker gene, with the promoter-trap GFP, was placed between two loxPs. The thymidine kinase (tk) as negative selection marker gene was just outside the right or left arms. Goat mammary epithelium cells were cultured to sub-confluence about 90% and transfected with linear pGBC-GFP-neo using Lipefectamin-2000. These transfected cells were cultured in collagen-coated 96-wellplate for 24 h without selection, then added the drug G418(600 microg/mL) and GANC(2 micromol/L). After nine days of selection, well separated G418r/GANCr clones were isolated and expanded in 24-wellplate; 51 clones were selected; 17 clones were tested by GFP expression using promoter-trap strategy; only four clones grow well. After PCR confirmation the four targeting cell clones homologous recombination were used as the donor cell for nuclear transfer. 59.5% cloned embryos could develop up. Some could develop to morula or blastocyst in vitro.
