The Watanabe heritable hyperlipidemic (WHHL) rabbit is an excellent model for Familial hypercholesterolemia, a common human genetic disease. The high cost, limited supply, and genetic variability have restricted the potential use of the WHHL rabbit. The production of genetically identical WHHL rabbits using nuclear transplantation technology would solve many of these problems. By using nuclear transplantation numerous identical animals could be produced in a short time from a single embryo, whereas, embryo splitting techniques can only produce two identicals. The use of genetically identical WHHL rabbits is an attractive experimental approach not only because they can be used to concisely study environmental effects on a genetic disease but also the use of identicals simultaneously minimizes animal utilization and suffering while maximizing cost effectiveness and accuracy. One genetically identical WHHL rabbit could replace 10 non-identical WHHL rabbits without losing any statistical significance in a study. The principle investigator was the first to produce nuclear transplant rabbits and in this study a more advanced stage embryo will be used to produce nuclear transplant WHHL rabbits. If using an advanced embryo is feasible then the production of a large number of genetically identical WHHL rabbits will be possible.
