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Aggregation of bovine cloned embryos at the four‐cell stage stimulated gene expression and in vitro embryo development
Author(s) -
Zhou Wenli,
Xiang Tianhao,
Walker Shawn,
Abruzzese Ronald V.,
Hwang Earl,
Farrar Vicki,
Findeisen Brian,
Sadeghieh Sanaz,
Arenivas Fernando,
Chen ShuHung,
Polejaeva Irina
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
molecular reproduction and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.745
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1098-2795
pISSN - 1040-452X
DOI - 10.1002/mrd.20875
Subject(s) - blastocyst , biology , embryo , somatic cell nuclear transfer , somatic cell , cloning (programming) , embryogenesis , inner cell mass , gene , microbiology and biotechnology , gene expression , in vitro , microarray analysis techniques , andrology , genetics , medicine , computer science , programming language
Abstract Pre‐implantation embryos produced by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) have varied developmental potentials. The majority of SCNT blastocysts do not develop to term, and the mechanisms inhibiting development are still largely unknown. Aggregation of cloned embryos has been attempted to compensate for the developmental deficiency of individual cloned embryos. In this report, we investigated the impact of aggregation of bovine cloned embryos at the four‐cell stage on in vitro development and gene expression of the embryos. Cell numbers and development rate of aggregated (NTagg) and non‐aggregated (NT) blastocysts were characterized and compared. The blastocyst formation after aggregation was modeled using the binominal distribution. The results indicate that aggregation enhances the blastocyst formation but does not increase the overall blastocyst rate. Additionally, utilizing microarray gene chip analysis 8.8% of 8,059 genes analyzed were differentially expressed between NTagg and NT blastocysts, with more than 80% of the differentially expressed genes up‐regulated in the NTagg blastocysts. Up‐regulated genes include those involved in transcription, biosynthesis and signaling such as TDGF1, HNFA, CAV1, GLU5, and CD81. Our results indicate that aggregation of bovine cloned embryos at an early stage promotes the in vitro development of the resulting pre‐implantation embryos. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 75: 1281–1289, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.