Development of inter-family nuclear transplant embryos by transplanting the nuclei from the loach blastulae into the non-enucleated zebrafish eggs

The developmental fate of the pronuclei in recombined embryos obtained by transplanting the donor nuclei into the non-enucleated eggs remains controversial in the case of fish. In the present study, the nuclei from the loach blastulae were transplanted into non-enucleated zebrafish eggs, the resulting 9 inter-family nuclear transplant embryos developed to larval stages. Although the development timing of the nuclear transplants resembled that of zebrafish, chromosome examination revealed that most of the recombined embryos were diploids with karyotype characteristic of loach, which was also proved by RAPD analysis. Moreover, 3 out of the 9 larval fish formed barb rudiments specific to loach. It was therefore concluded that the nuclear transplant larval fish were inter-family nucleo-cytoplasmic hybrids; and that only the donor nuclei were involved in the development of the nuclear transplant embryos, while the pronuclei in the non-enucleated eggs were likely automatically eliminated during the development.