Photos of the animal show glowing eyes and yellow-green fingertips as these parts were grown out of the fluorescent stem cells.
However, the green tags were seen widely including in the brain, kidneys, liver and gonads.
The gonadal presence of the donated fluorescent green cells indicated the chimeric primate may be able to pass on the donated cells to its future offspring.
Genetic engineering
“This is a long-sought goal in the field,” says senior author Zhen Liu of CAS.
“This research not only has implications for understanding naive pluripotency in other primates, including humans, but it also has relevant practical implications for genetic engineering and species conservation.
“Specifically, this work could help us to generate more precise monkey models for studying neurological diseases as well as for other biomedicine studies.”
“This work helps us to better understand naive pluripotency in primate cells,” adds co-corresponding author Qiang Sun of CAS.
“In the future, we will try to increase the efficiency of this method for generating chimeric monkeys by optimising the culture conditions for the stem cells, the cultures for the blastocysts where the stem cells are inserted, or both.”
The study is published in Cell.
Dr. Thomas Hughes is a UK-based scientist and science communicator who makes complex topics accessible to readers. His articles explore breakthroughs in various scientific disciplines, from space exploration to cutting-edge research.
