The Impact of Two Embryo Culture Media, Synthetic Oviduct Fluid and Commercial BO, on pre-and post-Implantation Development of Cloned SAANEN Goat Embryos

BACKGROUND: Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is an approach for the propagation of elite animals. In vitro condi- tion, especially the composition of culture media has a profound effect on the developmental competency of in vitro derived e mbryos. There are limited studies evaluating the effect of culture media on SCNT outcomes. To address this gap, we compare the effect of two culture media synthetic oviduct fluid (SOF) vs. commercial bracket-oliphant (BO) on developmental comptenecy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this experimental study, embryos derived from in vitro fertilized (IVF) and SCNT were cultured in both BO and SOF media for 7 days. In addition to the assessment of cleavage and blastocyst on day 3, and 7, the quantitative expression of 16 genes in theresultant blastocysts were assessed. The resultant SCNT blastocysts from SOF and BO groups were also transferred to the synchronized recipient for developmental competency to term. RESULTS: The blastocyst rate in the BO medium was significantly higher than that of the SOF medium in the SCNT group (P<0.05). All of the examined genes showed increased expression levels in SCNT blastocyst in both media compared to IVF Blastocyst. In the IVF group, Oct4, Bmpr1, and Gcn5 showed significantly higher expression in the SOF medium com- pared to the BO medium while Akt, Fgfr4, Sox2 showed significantly lower expression in the SOF medium compared to the BO medium. In the SCNT group, Fgfr4, Gcn5, Fzd, Ctnnb, Bmpr1, and Fgfr4 showed significantly higher expression in SOF compared to BO derived blastocyst. CONCLUSION: It appears that in SCNT blastocysts, gene regulation is less controlled compared to IVF ones, irrespective of the type of medium. In addition, there are differences regarding certain genes expressions between IVF and SCNT derived blas- tocysts between SOF and BO, reiterating that culture composition affects developmental competency and gene expression.