Abstract

An experiment was carried out to develop transgenic chickens using sperm incubated with exogenous DNA. Two random bred lines of chickens were used as parental flocks, and the plasmid pUC18 was used as the exogene. Lipofectin was also used to facilitate the sperm cell uptake of the plasmid. Hens were inseminated with the semen that was subjected to different treatments and their eggs were hatched. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed on spermatozoa and blood genomes of the parental flocks and on blood genomes of the progeny. The plasmid DNA was recognized in spermatozoa of both lines in most of the treatments with different amplification rates. However, plasmid DNA was highly fused into the sperm cells when it was introduced in a complex with lipofectin. Also, the plasmid DNA band was highly amplified in the progeny which resulted from sperm cells incubated with the plasmid and lipofectin at 5% concentration. The results reveal the success of the development of F₁ chickens by sperm-mediated gene transfer (SMGT). The positively detected SMGT-derived offspring formed 40.0 to 50.0% of the F₁ generation.

Key words: Rooster spermatozoa, lipofectin, sperm-mediated gene transfer-derived offspring, sperm-mediated gene transfer.