Effect of Single Vs. Group Culture System On In Vitro Maturation and Embryo Development in Bovine

Hafiza Khatun; Md. Rasadul Islam

Authors

Hafiza Khatun Associate Professor, Faculty of Animal Husbandry, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, BANGLADESH
Md. Rasadul Islam Faculty of Agriculture, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, JAPAN

Keywords:

Blastocysts Quality, Bovine Oocyte, Group Culture, In vitro Maturation, In vitro Embryo Culture, Single Culture

Abstract

The first objective of this research was to compare the effect of single vs. group culture methods on the developmental rate of oocyte maturation and embryo production in vitro. Next, to investigate the quality of blastocyst derived from single vs. group culture methods. Bovine cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) derived from slaughterhouse ovaries were matured in single (1 COCs/drop) and group (20 COCs/drop) methods for 22 h followed by 6 h in vitro fertilization, and zygotes were cultured for 8 days. To evaluate the blastocyst quality TUNEL Assay was performed on day 8 of IVC. The results showed that single culture methods significantly decreased the rate of oocyte nuclear maturation (90.1 ± 1.5 vs. 81.2 ± 2.5; P<0.01) and subsequent embryonic development (47.6 ± 2.2 vs. 41.5 ± 1.9; P < 0.05) compared to the group culture methods. In contrast, the rate of fertilization and the number of total cells in blastocysts were similar between single vs. group culture methods. In addition, there was a tendency to decrease the percentage of apoptosis cells in blastocysts derived from a single method than that observed in the group culture method. In conclusion, the group culture method had higher developmental competence of oocytes compared to the single method; however, in terms of blastocyst quality, no significant difference was found between the two groups of culture methods. These findings suggest that improvement of single culture methods will be the best option to reduce the constraints associated with group culture methods and may be contributed to quality embryo transfer in either animals or humans.

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