Long-Term Effects Following Fresh/Vitrified Embryo Transfer Are Transmitted by Paternal Germline in a Large Size Rabbit Cohort

Abstract

The concept of developmental programming suggests that the early life environment influences offspring phenotype in later life, whose effects may also be manifested in further generations. Valuable pieces of evidence come from the fields applying assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), which deprive embryos of their optimal maternal environment and were thus associated with subsequent developmental deviations. Recently, we demonstrated that the in vitro manipulations during a vitrified embryo transfer procedure incurs a cumulative and transgenerational decline in the growth performance of the resulting offspring. Here, we provide a longitudinal study to investigate whether previous developmental deviations could be indistinctly paternally or maternally transmitted using crossbred mattings. Our findings revealed that early embryo manipulations through fresh and vitrified embryo transfer incurred paternally transmissible effects over the growth pattern and adult body weight, which seemed not inheritable via the female germline. Similar inheritable effects were observed after fresh and vitrified embryo transfer, suggesting that disturbing optimal embryo development through in vitro manipulations was the principal trigger of transmissible effects, rather than embryo cryopreservation per se.

Early Embryo Exposure to Assisted Reproductive Manipulation Induced Subtle Changes in Liver Epigenetics with No Apparent Negative Health Consequences in Rabbit

“…Overall, the findings suggest that although results on the direct connection between the modulation of liver homeostasis by ART and epigenetic regulation are still minimal, the evidence that ART altered phenotypes suggests that ART is likely to be a player in epigenetic events regulating homeostasis in adulthood. In our experience, we have not found evidence that embryo manipulation has an overwhelmingly negative effect on health in the rabbit model [ 19 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 ], in line with the mouse model. However, the main limitation of our studies and others is that those who develop adverse health outcomes may not do so until later in life.…”

Effects of Rederivation by Embryo Vitrification on Performance in a Rabbit Paternal Line

“…Long-term (transgenerational) effects have also been reported in maternal lines (selected for litter size, Lavara et al, 2014;García-Dominguez et al, 2020d) and recently in the paternal lines (selected for growth rate, García-Dominguez et al, 2020c), where growth traits are affected more than the reproductive traits. Differences observed from the first generation (F1) were significant in the three growth traits assessed (WW, EFW, and ADG).…”

The Positive Effects of In Vivo/In Vitro Suplementation of Nanoparticles on Semen

“…This technique enables the production of multiple offspring from a single female, which is particularly useful when dealing with valuable or rare genetics. ET has been used successfully in sheep for many years and is a valuable tool for improving the genetic potential of flocks (Dominiguez et al, 2020).…”