Reproduction Abstracts

Introduction: The type II bacterial clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) and CRISPR-associated protein (Cas) have been proven to be an effective gene targeting system. Genome editing of non-rodent mammalian species is a promising strategy for generation of animal models for human diseases. Mashiko et al. reported a high efficacy of direct injection of a plasmid DNA, encoding humanized Cas9 and sgRNA (single-guide RNA) in mice. Here we show successf...

Introduction: Trophoblast stem cells (TSC) maintain their undifferentiated status under the presence of fibroblast growth factor 4 (FGF4), heparin and feeder cell-conditioned medium (CM). It has been reported that activin A can replace CM. However, even in such stem cell condition, a portion of TSC spontaneously undergoes differentiation. In addition, when TSC are induced to differentiate, all trophoblast subtypes autonomously appear without the addition of any exogenous facto...