非人灵长类在生物学、遗传学和行为学上与人类非常相似，是研究人类疾病和开发治疗策略的重要模型。用胚胎干细胞(ESC)建立嵌合体动物能为这类研究提供很大的帮助，但却一直没能实现。

 

    昆明理工大学和中科院的研究团队日前在这方面取得了重要成果，他们用ESC成功生成了食蟹猴嵌合体胎儿。相关论文发表在六月二十五日的Cell Stem Cell杂志上，文章的通讯作者是昆明理工大学灵长类转化医学研究中心的李天晴(Tianqing Li)教授、季维智(Weizhi Ji)教授以及中科院动物研究所的周琪(Qi Zhou)研究员。

 

    研究显示，在特殊培养条件下生长的食蟹猴ESC(cESC)，能够整合到宿主胚胎中发展成嵌合体。这种培养条件改变了cESC的生长特性、基因表达图谱和自我更新的信号通路，将其诱导到类似naive的状态。

 

    这些cESC在注入桑椹胚之后形成了嵌合体囊胚。研究人员将囊胚移植到代孕母猴的体内，使其发展成为嵌合体胎儿。进一步研究表明，cESC对三个胚层和生殖细胞前体都做出了贡献。

 

    这项研究向人们展示，用ESC生成嵌合体猴子是可行的。人们可以在此基础上建立非人灵长类动物模型，进行多能性和人类疾病研究。

 

    原文标题：Generation of Cynomolgus Monkey Chimeric Fetuses using Embryonic Stem Cells

 

    原文摘要：Because of their similarity to humans, non-human primates are important models for studying human disease and developing therapeutic strategies. Establishment of chimeric animals using embryonic stem cells (ESCs) could help with these investigations, but has not so far been achieved. Here, we show that cynomolgus monkey ESCs (cESCs) grown in adjusted culture conditions are able to incorporate into host embryos and develop into chimeras with contribution in all three germ layers and in germ cell progenitors. Under the optimized culture conditions, which are based on an approach developed previously for naive human ESCs, the cESCs displayed altered growth properties, gene expression profiles, and self-renewal signaling pathways, suggestive of an altered naive-like cell state. Thus our findings show that it is feasible to generate chimeric monkeys using ESCs and open up new avenues for the use of non-human primate models to study both pluripotency and human disease.