Reproductive Technologies Relevant to the Genome Resource Bank in Carnivora

Abstract

Carnivora is one of the most species-rich order of Mammalia. Some species, e.g. domestic cats, dogs and ferrets, are among the most popular pets; others, such as minks and farmed foxes, have economic value for the fur breeding industry. Still others, such as tigers, bears and other top predators, have great impact on the health of natural ecosystems. Most if not all Carnivora species have great cultural and aesthetic importance for man. There are enormous differences between mammalian species in reproductive physiology, and it is not surprising that reproductive technologies can be used with high efficiency with some animal groups, e.g. most farm animals and laboratory rodents, but are very laborious when used with Carnivora species, which often possess unique reproductive traits. The efficiency of assisted reproductive technology (ART) applied to semi-domestic, non-domestic and especially to endangered species of Carnivora remains extremely low in most cases, and often the first positive result reported is the only instance when ART has been successful with that species. Although there are approximately 270 species in the Carnivora order, to the best of our knowledge, successful published attempts to apply ART have been reported for only four families: Mustelidae, Felidae, Canidae and Ursidae. The main achievements in ART, embryo technology in particular, for these families of Carnivora, together with challenges and problems, are reviewed in the relevant sections.

The Role of Genomics in Conservation and Reproductive Sciences

“…Across diverse groups, especially groups like the carnivores with well-described model organisms (e.g. the domestic cat and dog; Table 5.1 ), comparing and contrasting reproductive patterns will be especially informative ( Amstislavsky et al 2012 ).…”

Genome resource banking of biomedically important laboratory animals

“…There has been great progress in the development of germplasm cryopreservation and related ART for utilization of GRB in a few species where genomic databases are rapidly becoming [69] available (e.g., cats, dogs) either directly, or for closely related counterparts that can serve as appropriate models [70-72]. Besides the animal species covered above, domestic cats and dogs are valuable research models for the study of genetic disease in humans, providing critical insight into pathology and treatment options, including emerging gene therapies.…”

Lipid droplet phase transition in freezing cat embryos and oocytes probed by Raman spectroscopy

“…Cryopreservation of preimplantation embryos and gametes is an important tool, routinely used to back up and exchange laboratory animal strains (1,2) and farm animal breeds (3,4). More recently, some successful examples to apply these technologies and Genome Resource Bank (GRB) concept for endangered animal species were reported (5-7). Despite significant progress in the development of cryopreservation approaches over the last few decades, these approaches can be effectively applied to the relatively small number of mammalian species (8,9).…”

“…A number of mammalian species are challenging for embryos/oocytes cryopreservation due to the excessive lipid droplet (LD) content (10-12). The problem of high lipid content in oocytes and embryos seems to concern virtually all the representatives of the Carnivora order (5,12), among which a large proportion are endangered species. At least, 28 of 38 extant species of Felidae family are either already considered as endangered/vulnerable or will get this status in the nearest future.…”