Gene manipulation of chick embryos in vitro, early chick culture, and long survival in transplanted eggs.

We introduce a revolutionary gene transfer system in chick: transfect chick embryos at early developmental stage by electroporation in vitro, Early Chick (EC) culture, and transplant to the egg to let the embryo survive until E5.5. Referring to the fate map, we could target the tissues of transfection, or transfect large areas of the embryo. We could get tissue-specific expression of a transgene by tissue-specific promoter. This method is very convenient and rapid, but allows us to get stable expression of the transgene in combination with transposon system.