Long-term health and germline transmission in transgenic cattle following transposon-mediated gene transfer.

Background: Transposon-mediated, non-viral gene delivery is a powerful tool for generating stable cell lines and transgenic animals. However, as multi-copy insertion is the preferred integration pattern, there is the potential for uncontrolled changes in endogenous gene expression and detrimental effects in cells or animals. Our group has previously reported on the generation of several transgenic cattle by using microinjection of the Sleeping Beauty (SB) and PiggyBac (PB) transposons and seeks to explore the long-term effects of this technology on cattle.

Efficient generation of transgenic cattle using the DNA transposon and their analysis by next-generation sequencing.

Here, we efficiently generated transgenic cattle using two transposon systems (Sleeping Beauty and Piggybac) and their genomes were analyzed by next-generation sequencing (NGS). Blastocysts derived from microinjection of DNA transposons were selected and transferred into recipient cows. Nine transgenic cattle have been generated and grown-up to date without any health issues except two.