Establishment and characteristics of Iranian Sistani cattle fibroblast bank: a way to genetic conservation

Cryopreservation of cell lines from endangered animals is an important approach to conserve genetic resources. In this study, ear fibroblasts from 51 Iranian Sistani cattle (Bos indicus) were cultured and cryopreserved in vitro, and their biological characteristics, proliferation and chromosomal features were analyzed. The results indicated that Sistani cattle fibroblasts could be successfully obtained by explant culture. The cultured cells were typical fibroblasts, with normal morphology and population doubling time of approximately 24 ± 0.5 h. Karyotyping showed that frequency of cells with chromosome number 2n = 60 was >95%. Bacterial, fungal, yeast and mycoplasma contaminations were negative. The efficiencies of VSV-G (pMDG) and lentiviral pCSGW vectors encoding fluorescent proteins were around 60%. Multiplex PCR for identification of species confirmed that Sistani cattle cell lines had no cross-contamination. The samples identification information was prepared and is available in this research. These established cell lines are valuable genetic pools from endangered Iranian Sistani cattle breed, and would be a source of many biological studies such as genomic, postgenomic and somatic cell cloning researches.