Study on the inter-subspecies nuclear transfer of river buffalo somatic cell nuclei into swamp buffalo oocyte cytoplasm

The objective of this study was to explore the feasibility of inter-subspecies somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) of river buffalo (50 chromosomes) somatic cell nuclei into swamp buffalo (48 chromosomes) oocyte cytoplasm. The enucleated swamp buffalo oocytes were fused with four different types of river buffalo cells: freshly thawed ear fibroblasts, serum-starved ear fibroblasts, cumulus cells and ear fibroblasts from a cloned buffalo calf. As a result, the developmental competence of embryos reconstructed with freshly thawed ear fibroblasts was the poorest (P < 0.01), while those of the other three types were not different from each other. Furthermore, the efficiency of swamp–swamp buffalo, swamp–river buffalo and bovine-buffalo SCNT were also compared. The results showed that the blastocyst rate of swamp–river reconstructed embryos was not different from swamp–swamp embryos, while significantly higher than that of bovine-buffalo embryos (P < 0.01). A total of thirty cloned blastocysts derived from freshly thawed ear fibroblasts were transferred into thirteen recipient buffalos, four recipients established pregnancy, while three of them aborted on Days 65, 75 and 90 of gestation, respectively. One cross-bred buffalo (Murrah × swamp, 49 chromosomes) receiving three embryos delivered a 39 kg female calf on Day 335 of gestation. These results indicate that the inter-subspecies SCNT is feasible to produce swamp–river buffalo embryos, and these can develop to full term and result in live buffalo calves.