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Target Discovery and Validation Reviews and Protocols

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Transgenic Models 169<br />

a recombinant protein of pharmaceutical interest will be correctly posttranscriptionally<br />

modified in transgenic animals.<br />

2.1.5. Use of Episomal Vectors<br />

To avoid position effect of chromatin or transgenes, one theoretical possibility<br />

consists of using vectors, which remain autonomous as plasmids or minichromosomes.<br />

Several viruses, namely, herpes viruses, are maintained for long periods<br />

in organisms as independent genomes. Chromosome fragments also can<br />

replicate autonomously <strong>and</strong> be stably maintained. These natural mechanisms<br />

are being used to generate autonomous vectors. Vectors containing the origin of<br />

replication <strong>and</strong> Epstein–Barr nuclear antigen-1 gene from Eptein–Barr virus are<br />

spontaneously maintained in human cells. Interestingly, plasmids containing a<br />

matrix attached region (MAR) can autoreplicate in a number of animal cell<br />

types (23). It is not known whether this very flexible vector can be used to generate<br />

transgenic animals. Chromosomes fragments containing foreign genes<br />

also can be transmitted to daughter cells in vitro (24) <strong>and</strong> even maintained in<br />

transgenic mice (25). Additional studies are required before these tools can be<br />

used easily to generate transgenic animals.<br />

2.1.6. Use of Male Gametes<br />

Experiments carried out more than one decade ago showed that mouse sperm<br />

incubated with DNA could generate transgenic animals after in vivo or in vitro<br />

fertilization. This technique proved poorly reproducible in part because sperm<br />

contain DNAse, which degrades the foreign DNA (Fig. 2). The technique has<br />

been greatly improved, <strong>and</strong> it allowed the generation of transgenic pigs with a<br />

high yield (26,27) <strong>and</strong> also of transgenic sheep. This approach, which allowed<br />

gene transfer in rabbit embryos (28,29), is attractive only for animals in which<br />

microinjection is difficult, inefficient, or costly. A new method was defined several<br />

years ago to generate transgenic Xenopus. Indeed, DNA microinjection<br />

leads to the maintenance of DNA for some stages during embryo development<br />

but not to its integration. This method consists of degrading the membrane of<br />

isolated sperm to facilitate DNA uptake, incubating this damaged sperm in the<br />

presence of DNA, <strong>and</strong> fertilizing oocytes by using intracytoplasmic sperm<br />

injection (ICSI) (30). This method is currently used in Xenopus, <strong>and</strong> it has been<br />

extended to mice (31,32). Interestingly, it was recently shown that long DNA<br />

fragments from BAC or yeast artificial chromosome (YAC) vectors could be<br />

efficiently transferred to mouse oocytes (32). For unknown reasons, ICSI did<br />

not allow the generation of transgenic monkeys (33).<br />

Transgenesis in Xenopus has been recently improved after an interesting observation<br />

originally done in medaka. DNA fragments released from plasmids by<br />

the action of the meganuclease I-Sce 1 (I-Sce) showed a much higher capacity to

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