Characterization of trophoblast and extraembryonic endoderm cell lineages derived from rat preimplantation embryos.

Background: Previous attempts to isolate pluripotent cell lines from rat preimplantation embryo in mouse embryonic stem (ES) cell culture conditions (serum and LIF) were unsuccessful, however the resulting cells exhibited the expression of such traditional pluripotency markers as SSEA-1 and alkaline phosphatase. We addressed the question, which kind of cell lineages are produced from rat preimplantation embryo under "classical" mouse ES conditions.

Results: We characterized two cell lines (C5 and B10) which were obtained from rat blastocysts in medium with serum and LIF.