Interspecies Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer for In Vitro Production of Antarctic Minke Whale (Balaenoptera bonaerensis) Embryos

The objective of this study was to investigate the developmental ability of the whale embryos with interspecies somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) in comparison with bovine or porcine SCNT embryos and parthenotes. There were no significant differences among the proportions of pseud-pronucleus (PPN) formation of whale SCNT oocytes, intraspecies SCNT oocytes and parethenotes. Furthermore, no significant difference was found in the cleavage rates of whale SCNT embryos between 6-dimethylaminopurin (DMAP) and cycloheximide (CHX) as secondary activation treatments. In effects of different donor cell types (viable or non-viable cells) on whale SCNT embryos, there was no significant difference in the cleavage rates of whale SCNT embryos between the two cell types. Two- to four-cell stages of whale SCNT embryos were obtained, but none of the embryos reached the blastocyst stage. The cleaved whale embryos were confirmed to have whale genomic DNA. From the results, it was shown that both bovine and porcine oocyte cytoplasms have the potential to form PPN and to produce cleaved whale interspecies SCNT embryos, regardless of the survivability of donor cells.