DEVELOPMENT OF CLONE TRANSGENIC RABBITS FOR THE STUDY OF ATHEROSCLEROSIS

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Transgenic rabbits are widely used as both bioreactors for the production of therapeutic proteins and human disease models in many biomedical fields. In attempt to generate transgenic rabbits by nuclear transfer technique, we performed the initial trial in making clone rabbits using somatic cells from transgenic rabbits and herewith we have optimized several factors that may be involved in the success of nuclear transfer procedures such as culture media, fusion and activation conditions and other related factors. Both electric fusion and piezo methods were used in this study. Although the generation of clone rabbits using somatic cells is still in immature state, it seems that compared to other species (goat, sheep, cow, mouse and pig), rabbit cloning using somatic cell nuclear transfer is rather complicated and a lot of procedures need to be refined before we can succeed in making cloned rabbits. In the second part of the study, we investigated transgenic rabbits expressing human apo(a) in terms of Lp(a) atherogenicity after cholesterol diet feeding. We found that transgenic rabbits developed greater atherosclerosis in aorta and coronary arteries than did control rabbits.