DEVELOPMENT OF PORCINE EMBRYONIC STEM CELL TECHNOLOGY IN TAIWAN

摘要

Embryonic stem (ES) cells can self-renew and maintain undifferentiated characteristics under suitable in vitro conditions. They are able to differentiate in vitro, spontaneously or responding to suitable signals, into cells of all somatic cell types of the body, including the germ-line. Consequently, ES cells will be a valuable source for cell replacement therapy in numerous pathologies, and make a promise of cell transplantation and biomedical engineering in the future. Though the human ES (hES) cells hold promise in degenerative disorders such as Parkinson and Alzheimer, or in the treatment of spinal cord injury, the pre-clinical researches must be proved in suitable animal models to present bio-safety and long-term efficiency of transplanted ES cells and/or their derived cells before clinical therapies applied.The swine, a common livestock species, has the potential to serve as a great research model for human biomedicine. They share a high similarity in anatomic, immunologic and physiologic characteristics with human, and the sizes of their organs are fairly comparable to that of human. The pigs have been considered an optimal model for pre-clinical development of therapeutic approaches because their morphological and physiological functions are similar to human. Although the establishment of pluripotent ES cell lines from domestic species is much more difficult than that in murine species, porcine ES (pES) cell lines have been successfully derived from pre-implantation blastocysts. Moreover,pES cells were very similar to hES cells in many characteristics, including colony morphology, feeder-dependent and refractory to leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) in culture, and expression of stage-specific embryonic antigen 3/4 (SSEA3/4) but not the SSEA1 which is characterized to mouse ES (mES) cells. Therefore, the pES cells are adequate to serve as an excellent model in the study and development of regeneration medicine in human, especially the traceable pES cells and their deriving cells in the therapeutic approaches involving cell transplantation.