Background: Golden snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus roxellana) is an endangered primate species, whose molecular material for conservation purposes has not yet been maintained. Although small-molecule compounds (SMCs) have been reported to improve induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), their efficiency in the interspecies-transferred nucleus is still unknown.
Methods: We thus used the fibroblasts from the golden snub-nosed monkey treated with SMC as donor cells, injected into the enucleated oocytes of goats, to test such efficiency. Gene expression profiles in the cell-constructed embryos with and without SMCs were compared by qPCR.
Results: The results show that cell morphology undergoes remarkable changes (volume is smaller than normal cells, and many black spots in the cytoplasm were found); pluripotent genes (Oct4, Sox2, and Nanog) significantly increased with SMC treatment.
Conclusions: This study demonstrates that SMCs alter the properties of donor cells and promote the expression of pluripotent genes in hybrid embryos.
Keywords: Sichuan golden snub-nosed monkey; embryo; goat; iSCNT; small-molecule compounds.
© 2021 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.