Production of Germline Chimeric Quail by Transfer of Gonadal Primordial Germ Cells Preserved in Liquid Nitrogen.

Abstract

In previous studies, primordial germ cells (PGCs) of the chicken were successfully stored in liquid nitrogen, and viable progenies were obtained after transfer of the frozenthawed PGCs into recipient embryos. This study was performed in order to examine whether PGCs of the Japanese quail could be preserved under conditions similar to those for the cryopreservation of chicken PGCs. First, quail PGCs purified from embryonic blood were stored in liquid nitrogen for one to two weeks. The viability of the frozenthawed PGCs was 85% on average, indicating that the PGCs were successfully preserved. Then, gonadal PGCs enriched from the gonadal anlage of wild-type and F1 (AMRP×SBPN) quail embryos at 5 days of incubation were stored in liquid nitrogen for up to 5 months, and tranferred to quail embryos of the other strain. Upon mating with F1 (AMRP×SBPN) quail, progenies derived from the donor PGCs were obtained from two out of 12 manipulated quail. The proportion of donor derived progenies in these two germline chimeric quail was 2.4% and 2.5%. These results indicated that the quail gonadal PGCs stored in liquid nitrogen retained the ability to differentiate into functional gametes, and that the genetic resources of the quail could be conserved by cryopreserving their PGCs.