Transformed bovine trophoblast stem cell lines, characterization, gene editing and secretions

In cattle, the developing trophectoderm plays an essential role in conceptus elongation and secretion of factors necessary for maternal recognition of pregnancy. Building on previous work identifying signaling pathways regulating bovine TSC self-renewal and differentiation, we report the generation and characterization of transformed bovine TSC (bTSC) lines derived from blastocysts via lentiviral transduction of simian vacuolating virus 40 large T (LT) antigen.

These rapidly proliferating TSC cell lines, maintained in the presence of Rho-associated protein kinase (ROCK) inhibition, retain key morphological and transcriptional characteristics of bovine TSCs. Upon transforming growth factor β-induced differentiation, they exhibit morphological and molecular changes consistent with trophoblast maturation. To evaluate their utility for functional studies, we demonstrated stable gene introduction of tdTomato and EGFP using lentiviral vectors and employed CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing to target lentiviral EGFP integration sites, confirming efficient gene deletion.