Establishment of iPSC culture from cats (Felis catus) for application in retinal degeneration

• Grant number: 15/26247-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: March 01, 2016
• End date: May 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Veterinary Medicine - Animal Reproduction
• Principal Investigator: Carlos Eduardo Ambrósio
• Grantee: Janine Karla França da Silva Braz
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Zootecnia e Engenharia de Alimentos (FZEA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Pirassununga , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The production of iPSC in animal model allows the molecular understanding, and the clinical course of disease. Regarded as an animal model for various human diseases, the cat has proximity to humans for retinal circulation studies, for example. Retinal ischemia is a present injury in macular degeneration, a major cause of blindness in the world. The literature does not describe the generation of iPSC in domestic cats. Thus, this project aims to establish a stem cell line induced to pluripotency from ear pinnae fibroblast domestic cats, such pluripotent lines will be generated by lentiviral system. Later, will be produced and characterize the induced pluripotent cells, and differentiating them into pigment epithelial cells of the retina (gIPSC-RPE) and will be analised the integration, after the differentiating them gIPSC-RPE, in rats. With this work, we aimed to obtain iPSCs cats through the mechanisms described in the literature, such differentiating strains for therapeutic application of prospecting in veterinary and human clinical application.