Embryo vitrification in rabbits: Consequences for progeny growth

Abstract

The objective of this research is to examine if there are any effects of the rederivation procedures on rabbit growth pattern and on weight of different organ in adults. For this purpose, three experiments were conducted on two different groups of animals (control group and vitrified-transferred group) to evaluate the possible effect of embryo manipulation (vitrification and transfer procedures) on future growth traits. The first experiment studies body weight from 1 to 9 weeks of age from the two groups. The second experiment describes the growth curve of progeny from experimental groups and analyzes their Gompertz curve parameters, including the estimation of adult body weight. The third experiment has been developed to study if there are any differences in different organ weight in adult males from the two experimental groups. In general, the results indicate that rederivation procedures had effect on the phenotypic expression of growth traits. The results showed that rabbit produced by vitrification and embryo transfer had higher body weight in the first four weeks of age than control progeny. Results from body weight (a parameter) and b parameter estimated by fitting the Gompertz growth curve did not show any difference between experimental groups. However, differences related with growth velocity (k parameter of the Gompertz curve) were observed among them, showing that the control group had higher growth velocity than the vitrified-transferred group. In addition, we found that liver weight at 40th week of age exhibits significant differences between the experimental groups. The liver weight was higher in the control males than in the VF males. Although the present results indicate that vitrification and transfer pro-cedures might affect some traits related with growth in rabbits, further research is needed to assess the mechanisms involved in the appearance of these phenotypes and if these phenotypes could be transferred to the future progeny.

Rederivation by Cryopreservation of a Paternal Line of Rabbits Suggests Exhaustion of Selection for Post-Weaning Daily Weight Gain after 37 Generations

“…Finally, in the third generation, the heritable epigenetic effects generated by the rederived technique could emerge and become present. Lavara et al [23] demonstrated that vitrification and transfer procedures involved in a rederivation programme for rabbit embryos have long-term consequences on rabbit growth patterns and might affect some growth-related traits in rabbits. Therefore, if the genetic artefacts introduced by the rederivation process were similar in both generations, evaluating their phenotypic differences from the third generation post-rederivation should be the most appropriate method with a minor cumulative genetic drift variance [47].…”

Long-Term Phenotypic and Proteomic Changes Following Vitrified Embryo Transfer in the Rabbit Model

“…In the case of organ weights, data were corrected using body weight as a covariate. The growth rate was estimated by nonlinear regression using the Gompertz curve equation, well suited for rabbits [ 15 , 30 ]: y = a exp(−b exp(−kt)), where y is the observed body weight of one individual at a specific age (t). The rest of the parameters (a, b and k) of the Gompertz function have a biological interpretation, k being the parameter related to the rate of maturing (growth rate).…”

Insulin‐like growth factor I enhances the developmental competence of yak embryos by modulating aquaporin 3

“…Recently, different vitrification methods for cryopreservation of COCs have been reported in yaks (Pan, Cui, He, et al., ), pigs (Uchikura, Matsunari, Nakano, Hatae, & Nagashima, ), sheep (Hosseini et al., ), rabbits (Lavara, Baselga, Marco‐Jimnez, & Vicente, ) and mice (Mazur & Paredes, ). Vitrification methods include the cryoloop (Lane, Schoolcraft, Gardner, & Phil, ), solid surface (Dinnys, Dai, Jiang, & Yang, ) and CT methods (Kuwayama, ).…”