文摘
Porcine skin is frequently used as a substitute of human skin to cover large wounds in clinic practice of wound care. In our previous work, we found that transgenic expression of human cytoxicT-lymphocyte associated antigen4-immunoglobulin (hCTLA4Ig) in murine skin graft remarkably prolonged its survival in xenogeneic wounds without extensive immunosuppression in recipients, suggesting that transgenic hCTLA4Ig expression in skin graft may be an effective and safe method to prolong xenogeneic skin graft survival. In this work, using a transgene construct containing hCTLA4Ig coding sequence under the drive of human Keratine 14 (k14) promoter, hCTLA4Ig transgenic pigs were generated by somatic nuclear transfer. The derived transgenic pigs were healthy and exhibited no signs of susceptibility to infection. The hCTLA4Ig transgene was stably transmitted through germline over generations, and thereby a transgenic pig colony was established. In the derived transgenic pigs, hCTLA4Ig expression in skin was shown to be genetically stable over generations, and detected in heart, kidney and corneal as well as in skin. Transgenic hCTLA4Ig protein in pigs exhibited expected biological activity as it suppressed human lymphocyte proliferation in human mixed lymphocyte culture to extents comparable to those of commercially purchased purified hCTLA4Ig protein. In skin grafting from pigs to rats, transgenic porcine skin grafts exhibited remarkably prolonged survival compared to the wild-type skin grafts derived from the same pig strain (13.33?±?3.64 vs. 6.25?±?2.49 days, P?