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EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS: CHARACTERIZATION SERIES

Efficient Establishment of Mouse Embryonic Stem Cell Lines from Single Blastomeres and Polar Bodies

Laboratory for Genomic Reprogramming, Center for Developmental Biology, RIKEN Kobe, Kobe, Japan

Key Words. Embryonic stem cell • Blastomere • Polar body • Nuclear transfer

Correspondence: Teruhiko Wakayama, Ph.D., 2-2-3 Minatojima-minamimachi Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-0047, Japan. Telephone: 81-78-306-3049; Fax: 81-78-306-0101; e-mail: teru{at}cdb.riken.jp

Received on September 29, 2006; accepted for publication on December 12, 2006.

First published online in STEM CELLS EXPRESS  December 21, 2006.


Recently, ES cell lines were established from single blastomeres taken from eight-cell embryos in mice and humans with success rates of 4% and 2%, respectively, which suggests that the method could be used in regenerative medicine to reduce ethical concerns over harm to embryos. However, those studies used other ES cells as supporting cells. Here, we report a simple and highly efficient method of establishing mouse ES cell lines from single blastomeres, in which single blastomeres are simply plated onto a feeder layer of mouse embryonic fibroblasts with modified ES cell medium. A total of 112 ES cell lines were established from two-cell (establishment rate, 50%–69%), early four-cell (28%–40%), late four-cell (22%), and eight-cell (14%–16%) stage embryos. We also successfully established 18 parthenogenetic ES cell lines from first (36%–40%) and second polar bodies (33%), the nuclei of which were reconstructed to embryos by nuclear transfer. Most cell lines examined maintained normal karyotypes and expressed markers of pluripotency, including germline transmission in chimeric mice. Our results suggest that the single cells of all early-stage embryos or polar bodies have the potential to be converted into ES cells without any special treatment.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest is found at the end of this article.

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