Bioscientifica Proceedings

Abstract. Although the manipulation of animal genomes has a history of more than three decades, there are only a few of the reported genetically modified (GM) animals that have passed safety regulations and found their way through to market. The production and safety regulations of GM livestock are hindered by a variety of issues, most importantly, lack of embryonic stem cells (ESC) in livestock species and concerns around the nature and biosafety of the genom...

Abstract. During the last decade, transcriptome profiling has emerged as an efficient approach to describe and study cellular functions. The potential to survey transcript abundance for all genes offers promise to shed light on mammalian early embryogenesis. Furthermore, the report of aberrant phenotypes following the application of reproductive technologies also fueled the need to understand how embryos react, cope and adapt to their surrounding microenvironm...