Developmental competence of frozen-thawed blastocysts from fair-quality bovine embryos cultured with beta-mercaptoethanol.
Two-hundred-and-thirty-one fair-quality embryos at the compacted morula stage collected from 89 superovulated cows were cultured in TCM199 or Brinster's BMOC-3 medium with or without 100 microM beta-mercaptoethanol (beta-ME). After 24 h culture, a total of 142 fair-quality embryos developed to the blastocyst stage, of which 106 were subsequently frozen with 1.8 M ethylene glycol. The mean cell number and development rates of frozen-thawed blastocysts from the fair-quality embryos cultured in TCM199 containing beta-ME were higher than those of the fair-quality embryos directly frozen without culture. The pregnancy rates obtained with frozen blastocysts from fair-quality embryos tended to be lower than those of non-cultured fresh fair-quality embryos and cultured fresh blastocysts. These results indicate that the inclusion of beta-ME in pre-freezing culture media improve the development of frozen-thawed blastocysts from fair-quality embryos, but not the pregnancy rate.
Otoi
T
T
Department of Veterinary Sciences, Yamaguchi University, Japan. otoi@ayu.agr.yamaguchi-u.ac.jp
Koyama
N
N
Yamamoto
K
K
Horikita
N
N
Tachikawa
S
S
Suzuki
T
T
D000818:Animals; D001755:Blastocyst / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D002417:Cattle / Q000196:embryology* / Q000502:physiology*; D015925:Cryopreservation / Q000662:veterinary*; D003451:Cryoprotective Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D003470:Culture Media; D005260:Female; D008623:Mercaptoethanol / Q000494:pharmacology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D018873:Pregnancy Rate
D003451:Cryoprotective Agents; D003470:Culture Media; D008623:Mercaptoethanol