DEVELOPMENT OF MONKEYS PRODUCED BY EMBRYO SPLITTING & SPERM INJECTION

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Progress in experimentally studying the functions of genes discovered now or in the future depends primarily on having appropriate animal models. Similarly, learning how to manipulate genes to alter anatomy, physiology, or behavior, and determining the safety of these manipulations in primates, including humans, depends on appropriate animal models. An important approach to these issues concerns controlling and manipulating the genes of identical twins, who at conception have an identical genome. Recently, a procedure has been developed in which the 4-8 cell embryo of primates (morula stage) is split into individual cells. These cells are implanted into surrogate mothers, who carry a single fetus to term. The surrogate mother may or may not be the actual biological mother. Given appropriate experimental techniques, these identical twin fetuses can serve as control and experimental subjects in studies manipulating almost any aspect of the genome, the mother, the fetal environment, the subject's anatomy and physiology, and/or the postnatal environment. The utility of these potential models using embryo split twins depends largely on exactly how similar the twins are in their anatomy, growth, physiology, and behavior. The two major purposes of this research are (1) to determine the degree of twin similarity in macaque monkey subjects across a wide range of growth, physiological, and behavioral characteristics, and (2) determine whether the embryo splitting and surrogate mothering procedure produces any abnormalities in these characteristics.