Stoyan Petkov Graduate Student (Ph.D. program) Major Professor: Dr. Gary B. Anderson   Phone: (530) 752-7544 FAX: (530) 752-0175 E-mail: sgpetkov@ucdavis.edu

Education

B.S., Thracian University, St. Zagora, Bulgaria
Ph.D., Molecular, Cellular and Integrative Physiology,University of California, Davis, CA (in progress)

Project: 

We are working on deriving new embryonic germ cell (EGC) lines from porcine primordial germ cells (PGC), and we are looking for ways to improve the efficiency of EGC culture. EGC are stem cell-like immortal cells, which can grow for many passages and remain in an undifferentiated state under the appropriate conditions. This ability to stimulate proliferation in long-term culture would allow for more efficient genetic manipulation of these cells. Their subsequent use as nuclear donors in nuclear transfer could result in the production of genetically modified pigs for research and/or biomedicine uses. Our goal is to evaluate the potential for EGC to be used in the production of cloned piglets.

Since the imprinting status of the nuclear donors is relevant to the outcomes of cloning by nuclear transfer, the global methylation profiles and the methylation status of important imprinted genes will be evaluated in PGC from embryos of different ages, as well as in the EGC lines derived from them. This information could prove useful for improving our understanding of the process of epigenetic reprogramming during gametogenesis in the pig.

Nuclear transfer in the pig is labor and time-consuming process under the traditionally employed techniques, which require the use of micromanipulators by trained and experienced personnel, and it still remains a process of low efficiency. For this reason, another of our goals is to develop alternate techniques that do not employ the use of complex technology and allow for higher productivity with the use of fewer resources.