细胞功能测定

Micron-sized fluid channels have been used for biology-related procedures, such as single-cell manipulation (1–3), cell deformation (4,5), cell assays (6), and subcellular molecule positioning (7). Owing to laminar fluid flow on this scale, small volumes of fluid can be precisely contro ...

The important principle of cryopreservation for mammalian embryos is to reduce damage caused by intracellular ice formation. To achieve this goal, two basic approaches were developed: Controlled slow-rate freezing protocols (1). and Vitrification protocols (2).

In the last few years, there has been a significant resurgence of interest in the potential benefits of human oocyte freezing. Essentially, these benefits are formation of donor “egg banks” to facilitate and lessen the cost of oocyte donation for women unable to produce their own oocytes; provis ...

The cytoplasm of oocytes and early embryos is literally the “stuff of life.” The mature mammalian oocyte is an enormous cell invested with all the components required for the initiation of development. Through embryonic cloning scenarios, it is now clear that such cytoplasm is a primary requir ...

Every cell in a mammal, other than odd exceptions (e.g. mature erythrocytes or lymphocytes with rearranged antigen receptors) contains a complete complement of the genetic information required to build another copy of the animal in question. However, the vast majority of adult cells are ter ...

Because of its many favorable characteristics, the zebrafish has become a popular model for studies of vertebrate development (1,2). To further enhance the utility of the zebrafish model for the genetic analysis of embryogenesis, we have been working to establish methods for cell-mediat ...

Zebrafish transgenesis was first demonstrated over 10 yr ago; however, the intensity of technological development has significantly increased in the past few years with the popularity of the zebrafish model. By transgenesis we are referring to germline transgenesis—the introduc ...

Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are a popular vertebrate model system, particularly useful for research in developmental genetics and neurobiology. The adults are easy to obtain and rear; the generation times are only a few months; and large clutches of big embryos are produced (100–1000 per mating). ...

Somatic and germline chimeric chickens are very useful for studying various biological functions of cells, such as immune rejection of donor cells in recipient embryos and chickens, or analyzing the developmental fate of transferred donor cells into recipients. Production of germl ...

The genome of the cat is highly conserved. In fact, of the nonprimate mammalian species in which gene maps are developing, the cat genome exhibits the most similarities to that of the human (1). Biomedical studies in the domestic cat have contributed significantly to our knowledge in the areas of immu ...

For decades, a dream of animal breeders has been to clone (make exact genetic copies of) outstanding animals. This was first achieved by splitting embryos (1); however, with this technique, only a few animals of the same genetic origin could be produced (2). The second approach, which seemed to be more pro ...

Rabbits are widely used as experimental animals in various fields of research. However, unlike mice and rats, rabbits with a homologous genetic background are difficult to obtain, as few inbred strains have been established because of the fact that inbreeding decreases reproductive abi ...

The most important tools to investigate the genome of an organism are spontaneous or induced mutations. In mammals, with the exception of humans, the mouse is genetically the most thoroughly analyzed species. Hundreds of different mutant mouse strains are being bred in laboratories and sto ...

Nuclear transfer (NT) is a procedure by which genetically identical individuals can be created. The applications of these NT techniques will be in agriculture, biomedicine, and basic research. Based on the source of donor cells, NT can be classified into embryonic cell NT and somatic cell NT. Som ...

Changes in intracellular calcium concentrations (i) have been shown to regulate a wide variety of developmental processes. In particular, eggs that have completed meiosis or oocytes that are still in the process of undergoing meiotic maturation invariably display some form of a i elevat ...

Fluorescence microscopy has become the method of choice for imaging living specimens, as it offers high signal-to-background and the ability to discriminate between multiple fluorophores. Recently developed techniques, such as confocal (1) or multiphoton imaging (2), permit opt ...

Embryonic stem (ES) cells have the developmental capability to contribute to every cell type of the adult mouse when reintroduced into the blastocyst embryo (1,2). They can be easily manipulated in vitro to produce specific genetic alterations for the study of gene function and the biological ...

Since the early 1980s, embryonic stem (ES) cells have been isolated from the inner cell mass of the preimplantation blastocyst (1–3). They can be maintained in a pluripotent state for indefinite periods of time in the presence of the leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) or in coculture with mouse embry ...

Primordial germ cells (PGCs) are a small population of unique cells from which all germ cells arise in an organism. In this sense, PGCs can be considered the stem cells of the species. An important characteristic of PGCs is their ability to remain developmentally totipotent,whereas somatic cel ...

cDNA subtractive hybridization is a very powerful method to compare gene expression profiles between two cell or tissue samples of interest. The sample in which differentially expressed transcripts are to be found is usually referred to as “tester,” whereas the reference sample is called ...