Apoptosis in rabbit embryos produced by fertilization or nuclear transfer with fibroblasts and cumulus cells

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the development, the cell number of the blastocyst, and apoptosis in rabbit nuclear transfer (NT) embryos derived from adult fibroblasts and cumulus cells as compared with embryos derived from in vivo fertilization and in vitro culture. The developmental rate and the total cell number of the blastocyst were significantly lower in NT embryos than in fertilized embryos (FEs). The type of donor cells did not affect the embryonic developmental rate and the total cell number of blastocysts in NT groups. The present study investigated the onset and the frequency of apoptosis in NT embryos and FEs by using a terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick and labeling (TUNEL) assay. The earliest positive TUNEL signals were detected at the eight-cell stage in NT embryos and at the morula stage in FEs. The apoptotic index of the total blastocysts, the inner cell mass and the trophoderm was greatly higher in the NT embryos than in FEs. Moreover, the apoptotic index of the blastocyst from fibroblasts was significantly higher than that of the blastocyst from cumulus cells.

Transcriptional profiling by RNA-Seq of peri-attachment porcine embryos generated by a variety of assisted reproductive technologies

“…An increase in the incidence of apoptosis in SCNT embryos cultured in vitro has been reported previously (22,32,43). Our results suggest that increased programmed cell death may not be unique to SCNT embryos maintained in an in vitro culture environment but, rather, is associated with the SCNT process regardless of culture environment.…”

Efecto De La Aplicación De Gonadotropinas Recombinantes Humanas Sobre La Producción Y Calidad De Ovocitos Y Embriones en Coneja

“…Hoy en día sigue siendo la práctica más habitual cuando las hembras donantes no tienen un valor particular (Joly et al, 1996;Vicente et al, 2003;García et al, 2003a ;Tsiligianni et al, 2004;Liu et al, 2005;Salvetti et al, 2007b).…”

“…En muchas ocasiones la utilización del conejo como patrón de enfermedades humanas se basa en la utilización de poblaciones de animales transgénicos (Hirabayashi et al, 2000;Houdebine, 2005;Soler et al, 2005). En otras áreas de investigación el citoplasma de los ovocitos de coneja es empleado como receptor para la transferencia nuclear (Zhao et al, 2006;Chesne et al, 2002;Yang et al, 2004;Liu et al, 2005). Asimismo, también se emplea la técnica de inyección espermática intracitoplasmática, ICSI (Yamamoto et al, 1999;Ogonuki et al, 2005;Zhang et al, 2005), para todo lo cual se se requiere la utilización bien de embriones o bien de ovocitos.…”