Improvement of bovine in vitro embryo production by vitamin K2 supplementation

Abstract

Mitochondria play an important role during early development in mammalian embryos. It has been shown that properly controlled follicular preparation increases the likelihood of in-vitro-produced bovine embryos reaching the blastocyst stage and that competent embryos exhibit heightened expression of genes associated with mitochondrial function. We hypothesized that apparently incompetent embryos could be rescued by restoring mitochondrial function. It has been shown that vitamin K 2 (a membrane-bound electron carrier similar to ubiquinone) can restore mitochondrial dysfunction in eukaryotic cells. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate the effects of vitamin K 2 on bovine embryonic development in vitro. The vitamin was found most effective when added 72 h after fertilization. It produced a significant (P!0.05) increase in the percentage of blastocysts (C8.6%), more expanded blastocysts (C7.8%), and embryos of better morphological quality. It improved the mitochondrial activity significantly and had a measurable impact on gene expression. This is the first demonstration that current standard conditions of in vitro production of bovine embryos may be inadequate due to the lack of support for mitochondrial function and may be improved significantly by supplementing the culture medium with vitamin K 2 .

Increasing of blastocyst rate and gene expression in co-culture of bovine embryos with adult adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells

“…Despite great advances in the design of defined and semidefined embryo culture media [4][5][6], researchers still seek new media additives and somatic cell-based co-culture systems in an attempt to obtain higher yields of better quality embryos [7][8][9][10]. Presumably, somatic cells in a co-culture system may remove toxic components and reactive oxygen species, as well as Capsule Co-culture of in vitro produced bovine embryos with adult adipose tissue-derived bovine stem cells improved blastocyst development and quality.…”

Producción in vitro de embriones a partir de complejos cúmulos oocitos tipo II en bovinos Bos indicus

“…La morfología de los COC se ha utilizado como un parámetro de selección de calidad de los oocitos ya que parece existir una relación entre la morfología y el desarrollo competente 27 . Algunos estudios realizados en B. taurus, han mostrado que COC con signos de atresia temprana determinada por su aspecto morfológico (leve expansión de las células del cúmulo periféricas y ooplasma granulado) parecen tener la misma o mejor capacidad de desarrollo que los considerados morfológicamente normales 13,18,28 , aunque actualmente el dogma y el proceder durante los procedimientos de PIVE consiste en incluir solamente los oocitos con cúmulo compacto y ooplasma homogeneo denominados como morfológicamente normales [29][30][31] dejando atrás posiblemente COC competentes que si fueran incluidos podrían aumentar el número de COC que entran a los programas de PIVE y por ende las posibilidades de mejorar las tasas de producción de blastocistos de dichos programas. El presente estudio permitió evaluar el efecto de la morfología de los COC con signos de atresia temprana sobre las tasas de desarrollo embrionario in vitro en bovinos B. indicus.…”

Maternal control of oocyte quality in cattle “a review”

“…The potent antioxidant activity of vitamins (e.g., Vit.E, ß-carotene, and ascorbic acid) is essential to protect the cell membranes and to prevent apoptosis (Olson and Seidel, 2000;Ruder et al, 2014;Thomas et al, 2001). Moreover, the beneficial effect of vitamin K2 supplementation added 72 h post fertilization during in vitro culture of bovine embryos has been recently described (Baldoceda-Baldeon et al, 2014), as manifested by an enhanced mitochondrial activity, resulting in an increased blastocyst developmental rate.…”