Nuclear transfer in rabbit.

Since 2002, our INRA laboratory (Biologie du Développement et de la Reproduction) has developed a method to produce live somatic clones in rabbit, one of the mammalian species considered as difficult to clone. This chapter presents the technical protocol used nowadays to achieve the goal to obtain cloned embryos able to develop to term using fresh somatic cumulus cells.

First birth of an animal from an extinct subspecies (Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica) by cloning.

Two experiments have been performed to clone the bucardo, an extinct wild goat. The karyoplasts were thawed fibroblasts derived from skin biopsies, obtained and cryopreserved in 1999 from the last living specimen, a female, which died in 2000. Cytoplasts were mature oocytes collected from the oviducts of superovulated domestic goats.

Attempt to rescue sex-reversal by transgenic expression of the PISRT1 gene in XX PIS-/- goats.

The Polled Intersex Syndrome (PIS mutation) in goats leads to an absence of horn and to an early sex-reversal of the XX gonads. This mutation is a deletion of an 11.7-kb DNA fragment showing a tissue-specific regulatory activity.

In utero characterisation of fetal growth by ultrasound scanning in the rabbit.

Fetal development is an important factor influencing the susceptibility of adults to metabolic diseases. In order to study the influence of fetal growth on further development in animal models like the rabbit, methods of measurement of fetal and placental size and viability must be established and validated. In this study, 42 New Zealand does bred naturally (N=12) or transferred with in vivo produced embryos (2, 4 or 6 embryos/doe) have been scanned every 2-3 days with a 7.