and development of interspecies Asian elephant embryos reconstructed with pig enucleated oocytes.

Interspecies somatic cell nuclear transfer (iSCNT) has an immense potential to rescue endangered animals and extinct species like mammoths. In this study, we successfully established an Asian elephant's fibroblast cell lines from ear tissues, performed iSCNT with porcine oocytes and evaluated the and development of reconstructed embryos. A total of 7780 elephant-pig iSCNT embryos were successfully reconstructed and showed development with cleavage rate, 4-cell, 8-cell and blastocyst rate of 73.