PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Rongjia Zhang
AU  - Yuhuan Liu
TI  - A rat model of male pregnancy
AID  - 10.1101/2021.06.09.447686
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.06.09.447686
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/06/10/2021.06.09.447686.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/06/10/2021.06.09.447686.full
AB  - Male pregnancy is a unique phenomenon in syngnathidae which refers to the incubation of embryos or fetuses by males. However, whether male mammalian animals have the potential to conceive and maintain pregnancy remains unclear. Here, we constructed a rat model of male pregnancy by a four-step strategy: a heterosexual parabiotic pair was firstly produced by surgically joining a castrated male rat and a female rat. Uterus transplantation (UTx) was then performed on the male parabiont 8 weeks later. After recovery, blastocyst-stage embryos were transplanted to the grafted uterus of male parabiont and the native uterus of female parabiont. Caesarean section was performed at embryonic day (ED) 21.5. The success rate of modeling was only 3.68%, but 10 pups could still be delivered from male parabionts and developed. Our experiment reveals the possibility of normal embryonic development in male mammalian animals, and it may have a profound impact on reproductive biology.One-sentence summary A rat model of male pregnancy can be constructed in four steps.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.