Advances in the Study of Interspecies Chimerism in Mammals
ZHANG Yan-Yan1, DU Juan2, LIN Jiang-Wei3,4,*, GONG Dao-Qing1,*
1 College of Animal Science and Technology,Yangzhou University,Yangzhou 225009, China; 2 College of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Yangzhou University,Yangzhou 225009, China; 3 Kunmin Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China; 4 Faculty of Laboratory Animals, Kunming Medical University, Kunming 650504, China
Abstract：For patients with end-stage organ failure, organ transplantation is often the only viable treatment. However, there is an extreme shortage of organs available for transplantation globally. Regenerative medicine offers alternative ways to generate donor organs, with major strategies including xenotransplantation, tissue engineering, bioprinting, and organoid technology. However, these methods have their own limitations and drawbacks, restricting their clinical applications. In recent years, several clinical trials of xenotransplantation have been conducted, involving the transplantation of gene-edited pig organs into live human patients, but current reports indicate that these patients did not survive for long periods. Blastocyst complementation to create human-animal chimeras represents another potential pathway to obtain organs for human transplantation. This involves generating animal embryos with cell-lineage or organ deficiencies through gene editing to create a "vacant" microenvironment, which is then populated with human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC). Despite many obstacles and challenges, scientists are continuously refining and attempting this approach in hopes of clinical application. This review summarized the current research on interspecies chimeras and examined the existing challenges and potential strategies in this field, thereby providing a theoretical reference for future studies.
张言言, 杜娟, 林江维, 龚道清. 哺乳动物异种嵌合研究进展[J]. 农业生物技术学报, 2025, 33(12): 2714-2721.
ZHANG Yan-Yan, DU Juan, LIN Jiang-Wei, GONG Dao-Qing. Advances in the Study of Interspecies Chimerism in Mammals. 农业生物技术学报, 2025, 33(12): 2714-2721.
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