[A preliminary study on early development of goat (Capra hircus) reconstituted embryos]

Goat reconstituted embryos (REs) have been produced by electrofusion-mediated nuclear transplantation method. Single cell derived from normal embryos or REs developed to 8-cell morula stage or the inner cell mass (ICM) of early blastocyst stage was used to fuse with enucleated mature egg (26-28 hrs after injection of LRH). According to the results summarized in table 1 and 2, we decided to adopt the method to embed REs in agarose and then transfer into goat oviduct lumen of host mother for 4-6 days in vivo culture. Normal fertilized eggs seem to develop synchronously, but that of REs are not. Tables 4 and 5 reveal that REs and embryos reconstituted successively can develop normally, no significant difference was found among their development rates. All these experimental results indicate that nuclei of some blastomeres from normal embryos or REs (derived from eight cells to morula or ICM) retained their totipotency for further development. These nuclei can be reprogrammed in host ooplasm, and developed to term.