METHOD OF GENE TRANSFER INTO CHICKENS AND OTHER AVIAN SPECIES

摘要

A method of introducing a retroviral vector defective in replication in pluripotent stem cells of embryos of an avian species, including chickens, turkeys, quails or ducks. The process is useful for transferring nucleic acid sequences into avian embryonic cells that can differentiate into somatic cells or germ cells. The transfer into germ cells was performed to produce transgenic animals. The defective retroviral vector at replication used during the transfer may be a recombinant retroviral vector containing both a retroviral nucleic acid sequence derived sequence and a non-retroviral derived nucleic acids. Examples of non-retroviral nucleic acid sequences are a gene for resistance to neomycin and from the bacterial transposon Tn5, a thymidine kinase gene of herpes simplex virus and a gene of chicken growth hormone, although any nucleic acid sequence of prokaryotic and eukaryotic interest may be used. Transgenic chickens have been produced and their cells contain and express a nucleic acid sequence of the retroviral vector is defective in replication.