Secreting oviduct epithelial cells of Coturnix coturnix japonica (QOEC) and changes to their proteome after nonviral transfection.

The quail oviduct (Coturnix c. japonica) is a natural candidate avian bioreactor, while the secretive quail oviduct epithelial cells (QOECs) are potential in vitro producers of recombinant proteins and vaccines. In view of the need for highly performing and transformable cell lines, QOEC may potentially act as an alternative bioreactor platform to the existing ones, for example, to the Chinese hamster ovary. The aim of this work was to characterize QOECs and their response to nucleofection with a nonviral plasmid DNA carrying the human interferon-α 2a gene (hIFNλ2a), in vitro. Primary QOEC cultures from laying quails (10-15 weeks old) were characterized by their proliferation rate, doubling time, and multilineage differentiation. Electroporation to cell nuclei (nucleofection) was used to deliver nonviral plasmid DNA containing a reporter GFP and hIFN under the ovalbumin promoter. The posttransfection analysis included polymerase chain reaction, Western blot analysis, and liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry. QOEC showed a typical epithelial characteristic in a primary 2D monolayer culture system and retained secretive potential up to the first passage. QOEC showed differentiation into osteoblastic lineage after stimulation. The nucleofection mean efficiency was low (2.3%). Differences of up to 10% in the proteomic profiles between nontransfected and transfected QOEC were found, the most important of these were related to the absence of keratins and cell-adhesion proteins in the transfected QOEC. Concluding, with the practical information provided here, QOEC have the potential to serve as an avian secreting cellular platform. QOEC may be further transformed to cell lineage to meet the requirement for a stable, electrocompetent, and transfectable model. The first proteomic comparison of QOEC delivered in this study showed, in the majority, a stable proteome of the nontransfected vs transfected QOEC.

Changes in Quail Blastodermal Cell Status as a Result of Selection.

Genetic selection over many years has significantly improved the growth rate of broilers and increased the number of eggs laid by egg laying chicken breeds. Selection has improved desired parameters, but has caused some negative effects as well. Adverse effects of selection may negatively affect embryonic development. The number of live and apoptotic blastodermal cells (BCs) at the X stage of embryogenesis may be a good indicator of changes in selected individuals. In this paper, a comparison of the number of live and apoptotic BCs was made for three lines of quail: Pharaoh (F33), meat-type line, selected for body weight; egg laying line (S33), selected for egg number; and laying line (S22), additionally selected (for 17 generations) for high yolk cholesterol content. Apoptotic BCs were separated by the magnetic activated cell sorting (MACS) method. The percentage of live and apoptotic BCs was different (P ≤ 0.01) for F33 (35.8% and 64.2%, respectively) and S33 (60.0% and 36.4%). The number of apoptotic BCs for F33 embryos (45,098) was higher (P ≤ 0.01) compared to the number of apoptotic BCs for S33 embryos (26,667). The selection for high yolk cholesterol content caused an increase (P ≤ 0.01) in the total number of BCs from 78,403 (S33) to 140,139 (S22). The percentage of apoptotic BCs was lower (P ≤ 0.01) in the S22 line (17.1%) compared to the S33 line (36.4%). The results showed that it is possible to evaluate the effects of selection in the early stage of embryonic development.