Development of Nuclear Transfer and Parthenogenetic Rabbit Embryos Activated with Inositol 1,4,5-Trisphosphate1

The present study was carried out to evaluate the effects of different activation protocols, enucleation methods, and culture media on the development of parthenogenetic and nuclear transfer (NT) rabbit embryos. Electroporation of 25 mM inositol 1,4, 5-trisphosphate (IP3) in calcium- and magnesium-free PBS immediately induced a single intracellular calcium transient in 6 out of 14 metaphase II-stage rabbit oocytes evaluated during a 10-min recording period. The percentage of oocytes treated with IP3 followed by 6-dimethylaminopurine (IP3 + DMAP) that cleaved (83.9%) and reached the blastocyst stage (50%) was significantly higher (p < 0.05) than those activated with multiple pulses (61.6% and 30.1%, respectively) or treated with ionomycin + DMAP (52.9% and 5.7%, respectively). Development of IP3 + DMAP-activated rabbit oocytes and in vivo-fertilized zygotes in different culture media was studied. Development of activated oocytes to the blastocyst stage in Earle's balanced salt solution (EBSS) supplemented with MEM nonessential amino acids, basal medium Eagle amino acids, 1 mM L-glutamine, 0.4 mM sodium pyruvate, and 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS) (EBSS-complete) (40.6%) was significantly higher (p < 0.05) than those that developed in either Dulbecco's Modified Eagle's medium (DMEM)/RPMI + 10% FBS (15.5%) or CR1aa + 10% FBS (4%) medium. In addition, 100% of in vivo-fertilized rabbit zygotes developed to the blastocyst stage in EBSS-complete. A third set of experiments was carried out to study the efficiency of blind versus stained (Hoechst 33342) enucleation of oocytes. Twenty-nine of 48 blind enucleated and IP3 + DMAP-activated oocytes cleaved (60.4%), and 15 (31.2%) subsequently reached the blastocyst stage, whereas 9 of 52 oocytes enucleated using epifluorescence (17.3%) cleaved, and none of these reached the blastocyst stage. When the above parameters that yielded the highest blastocysts were combined in an NT experiment using adult rabbit fibroblast nuclei, 72.2% (39 of 54) of the fused nuclear transplant embryos cleaved and 29.6% (16 of 54) reached the blastocyst stage.