Selection against BALB/c strain cells in mouse chimaeras.

Anna Kopakaki,Jean H Flockhart,Gillian E Mackay,John D West,Pin-Chi Tang,Margaret A Keighren

doi:10.1242/bio.030189

Anna Kopakaki, Jean H Flockhart + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.1242/bio.030189

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Abstract

ABSTRACTIt has been shown previously that BALB/c strain embryos tend to contribute poorly to mouse aggregation chimaeras. In the present study we showed that BALB/c cells were not preferentially allocated to any extraembryonic lineages of mouse aggregation chimaeras, but their contribution decreased during the early postimplantation period and they were significantly depleted by E8.5. The development of BALB/c strain preimplantation embryos lagged behind embryos from some other strains and the contribution that BALB/c and other embryos made to chimaeras correlated with their developmental stage at E2.5. This relationship suggests that the poor contribution of BALB/c embryos to aggregation chimaeras is at least partly a consequence of generalised selection related to slow or delayed preimplantation development. The suitability of BALB/c embryos for maximising the ES cell contribution to mouse ES cell chimaeras is also discussed.

Highlights

Mouse aggregation chimaeras provide powerful research tools for a wide range of investigations (Eckardt et al, 2011), but the relative contribution of the two aggregated embryos varies widely among individual adult chimaeras and is difficult to control
BALB/c cells are not preferentially allocated to the mural trophectoderm lineage To investigate whether BALB/c cells were preferentially allocated to the mTE in chimaeras, we analysed the composition of the inner cell mass (ICM), pTE and mTE in chimaeric blastocysts, carrying the TgTP6.3 tauGFP marker transgene (Pratt et al, 2000; MacKay et al, 2005)
Results of our chimaera experiments revealed no evidence that BALB/c cells were preferentially allocated to the mTE but indicated they were at a selective disadvantage between E4.5 and E8.5

Summary

Introduction

Mouse aggregation chimaeras provide powerful research tools for a wide range of investigations (Eckardt et al, 2011), but the relative contribution of the two aggregated embryos varies widely among individual adult chimaeras and is difficult to control. This variation is useful for the analysis of the effects of genetic mutants because phenotypes can be correlated with the composition of chimaeric tissues.

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