Treatment of CHO cells with Taxol and reversine improves micronucleation and microcell-mediated chromosome transfer efficiency

Microcell-mediated chromosome transfer is an attractive technique for transferring chromosomes from donor cells to recipient cells and has enabled the generation of cell lines and humanized animal models that contain megabase-sized gene(s). However, improvements in chromosomal transfer efficiency are still needed to accelerate the production of these cells and animals. The chromosomal transfer protocol consists of micronucleation, microcell formation, and fusion of donor cells with recipient cells. We found that the combination of Taxol (paclitaxel) and reversine rather than the conventional reagent colcemid resulted in highly efficient micronucleation and substantially improved chromosomal transfer efficiency from Chinese hamster ovary donor cells to HT1080 and NIH3T3 recipient cells by up to 18.3- and 4.9-fold, respectively. Furthermore, chromosome transfer efficiency to human induced pluripotent stem cells, which rarely occurred with colcemid, was also clearly improved after Taxol and reversine treatment. These results might be related to Taxol increasing the number of spindle poles, leading to multinucleation and delaying mitosis, and reversine inducing mitotic slippage and decreasing the duration of mitosis. Here, we demonstrated that an alternative optimized protocol improved chromosome transfer efficiency into various cell lines. These data advance chromosomal engineering technology and the use of human artificial chromosomes in genetic and regenerative medical research.