Abstract
The marine mammalian Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin, once widely lived in waters of the Indian to western Pacific oceans, has become an endangered species. The individual number of this dolphin has significantly declined in recent decades, which raises the concern of extinction. Direct concentration on laboratorial conservation of the genetic and cell resources should be paid to this marine species. Here, we report the successful derivation of cell lines form the skin of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin. The cell cultures displayed the characteristics of fibroblast in morphology and grew rapidly at early passages, but showed obvious growth arrest at higher passages. The karyotype of the cells consisted of 42 autosomes and sex chromosomes X and Y. The immortalized cell lines obtained by forced expression of the SV40 large T-antigen were capable of proliferation at high rate in long-term culture. Immortalization and long-term culture did not cause cytogenetically observable abnormality in the karyotype. The cell type of the primary cultures and immortalized cell lines were further characterized as fibroblasts by the specific expression of vimentin. Gene transfer experiments showed that exogenetic genes could be efficiently delivered into the cells by both plasmid transfection and lentivirus infection. The cells derived from the skin of the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin may serve as a useful in vitro system for studies on the effects of environmental pollutants and pathogens in habitats on the dolphin animals. More importantly, because of their high proliferation rate and susceptibility to lentivirus, these cells are potential ideal materials for generation of induced pluripotent stem cells.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Ocean Park Conservation Foundation HK for assist in sample collection. The work was supported by the Sun Yat-Sen University (grant no. 42000-3281303), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 31271576, 41276147), the Ph.D. Programs Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (grant no. 20120171110033), and the Sousa chinensis Conservation Action Project from the Administrator of Ocean and Fisheries of Guangdong Province, China.
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Jin, W., Jia, K., Yang, L. et al. Derivation and characterization of cell cultures from the skin of the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin Sousa chinensis . In Vitro Cell.Dev.Biol.-Animal 49, 449–457 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11626-013-9611-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11626-013-9611-7