Date:December 9, 2015
Source:Cornell University
For the first time, a litter of puppies was born by in vitro fertilization, thanks to work by Cornell University researchers.
The breakthrough, described in a study to be published online Dec. 9 in the journal Public Library of Science ONE, opens the door for conserving endangered canid species, using gene-editing technologies to eradicate heritable diseases in dogs and for study of genetic diseases. Canines share more than 350 similar heritable disorders and traits with humans, almost twice the number as any other species.
Nineteen embryos were transferred to the host female dog, who gave birth to seven healthy puppies, two from a beagle mother and a cocker spaniel father, and five from two pairings of beagle fathers and mothers.
"Since the mid-1970s, people have been trying to do this in a dog and have been unsuccessful," said Alex Travis, associate professor of reproductive biology in the Baker Institute for Animal Health in Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine.
Jennifer Nagashima, a graduate student in Travis' lab and the first to enroll in the Joint Graduate Training Program between the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and Cornell's Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, is the paper's first author.
For successful in vitro fertilization, researchers must fertilize a mature egg with a sperm in a lab, to produce an embryo. They must then return the embryo into a host female at the right time in her reproductive cycle.
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