• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.243-247
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• 2016

Growth traits, such as body weight, directly influence productivity and economic efficiency in the swine industry. In this study, we estimate heritability for body weight traits usinginformation from pedigree and genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) chip data. Four body weight phenotypes were measured in 1,105 $F_2$ progeny from an intercross between Landrace and Jeju native black pigs. All experimental animals were subjected to genotypic analysis using PorcineSNP60K BeadChip platform, and 39,992 autosomal SNP markers filtered by quality control criteria were used to construct genomic relationship matrix for heritability estimation. Restricted maximum likelihood estimates of heritability were obtained using both genomic- and pedigree- relationship matrix in a linear mixed model. The heritability estimates using SNP information were smaller (0.36-0.55) than those which were estimated using pedigree information (0.62-0.97). To investigate effect of common environment, such as maternal effect, on heritability estimation, we included maternal effect as an additional random effect term in the linear mixed model analysis. We detected substantial proportions of phenotypic variance components were explained by maternal effect. And the heritability estimates using both pedigree and SNP information were decreased. Therefore, heritability estimates must be interpreted cautiously when there are obvious common environmental variance components.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.109-114
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• 2015

Cryopreservation of boar semen is continually researched in reproductive technologies and genetic resource banking in breed conservation. For evaluating the boar semen quality, sperm motility (MOT) is an important parameter because the movement of spermatozoa indicates active metabolism, membrane integrity and fertilizing capacity. Various researches have been trying to improve the quality of semen post-thawed in boar. Recently, polymorphism (g.358A>T) of cluster-of-differentiation antigen 9 (CD9) gene reported to be significant association with MOT. Also, CD9 gene was expressed in the male germ line stem cells is crucial for sperm-egg fusion, and was therefore selected as candidate gene for boar semen. This study was conducted to evaluate the pig SNP (g.358A>T) of CD9 gene as a positional controlling for semen parameters of post-thawed boar semen. To results, the g.358A>T SNP of the CD9 gene was significantly associated with the traits such as MOT, curve linear velocity, straight line velocity, average path velocity and amplitude of lateral head displacement. Particularly, the g.358A>T SNP significantly has the highest association with MOT and animals with AA genotype (p<0.001). Therefore, we suggest that the g.358A>T in the intron 6 region of the porcine CD9 may be used as a molecular marker for Duroc boar Post-thawed semen quality, although its functional effect was not defined yet.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.7-12
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• 2002

This study was carried out to investigate the possibility of porcine artificial insemination (A·I) on fertilizing capacity using intrauterine inseminator (IUI) method and conventional A·I (CAI) method. Number of sows used in this study was 15 far IUI and 59 fur (CAI), respectively. The results obtained are as fellows: 1 . The frozen and liquid semen used for A·I showed the higher farrowing rate in liquid semen (86.4%) than frozen semen (67%). Number of pigs born per semen type showed the higher values of number of piglets with no statistical significance using frozen semen (9.7) than liquid semen (9.3). 2. The farrowing rate per parity was highest in the 3∼5th parities (100%), f311owe4 by 0∼ 2th parities (60%), and was the smallest in 6 ∼ 10th parities (25%). Number of pigs born per litter was highest in 0∼2th parities (11.3), followed by 3 ∼ 5th parities (9.2) and lowest in 6∼ 10th parities. In the number of pigs bort per litter, the sow s in the high parities delivered lower number of piglets than those in low parities with no significant difference. These results indicated that fertilizing capacity could be improved by using IUI method.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Embryo Transfer Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.117-117
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• 2002

The oocytes from most of animal species accumulate genetic information and other necessary materials during oogenesis for the later use in the early development. Over the years oocyte maturation has been studied extensively both in vitro and in vivo. Particularly, maturation of follicular oocyte in vitro becomes one of the important tools for the studies of basic cell biology, the in vitro technology of animal production, and in particular, the somatic cell cloning by nuclear transfer. We examined meiotic maturation and cumulus expansion in the presence of translation or transcription inhibitors for varying periods of in viかo maturation (IVM) of pig oocyte. In Experiment 1, the results revealed that translation and transcription inhibitors inhibited cumulus expansion and meiotic maturation during 35h of IVM. However, 50 to 60% of the oocytes underwent nuclear maturation without cumulus expansion during 75h of IVM. The rest of the oocytes were arrested at metaphase I (40-50%) in the presence of the inhibitors. In Experiment II, the OCCs were exposed to the drugs only for 15h to examine translation and transcription inhibitors on cumulus expansion and meiotic maturation. Transcription inhibitors for 15h did not arrest meiotic maturation when the oocytes were cultured for subsequent, necessary period of IVM, whereas cumulus expansion was completely inhibited, suggesting that initial 15h is critical transcription activity far cumulus expansion. Translation inhibitors for 15h exposure did not alter cumulus expansion and meiotic maturation during subsequent culture in the absence of the drugs. In Experiment III, the OCCs were exposed to the drugs only for later 30h to examine the influence of transcription and translation inhibitors on oocyte maturation. Interestingly, all meiotic maturation underwent normally with full expansion of cumulus. Similar results were obtained from Experiment IV where 5h of exposure from 15 to 20h of IVM culture to the drugs was performed and subsequently cultured for same period in fresh medium. Taken there results together, both transcription and translation are necessary for nuclear maturation and cumulus expansion, and first 15h IVM for cumulus expansion is critical. The arrested oocytes by the drugs were still capable of undergoing nuclear maturation, although cumulus expansion was affected.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.287-295
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• 2017

Mitochondrial dysfunction is found in oocytes and transmitted to offspring due to maternal obesity. Treatment of obese mothers with endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress inhibitors such as salubrinal (SAL) can reverse the mitochondrial dysfunction and result in normal embryonic development. Pig oocytes have also shown ER stress mostly in metaphase II stage. ER stress in oocytes may hinder the in vitro production of pig embryos. This study investigated the effect of ER stress inhibition by SAL treatment during in vitro maturation (IVM) of porcine oocytes at 1, 10, 50 and 100 nM concentrations. Firstly, we tested various concentrations of SAL. SAL at 10 nM showed higher (P < 0.05) developmental competence to the blastocyst stage (55.6%) after parthenogenesis (PA) than control (44.2%) while not different from other concentrations (49.2, 51.6, and 50.8% for 1, 50, and 100 nM, respectively). Secondly, we performed time-dependent treatment at 10 nM of SAL for IVM of oocytes. It revealed that treatment with SAL during 22 to 44 h of IVM significantly improved PA embryonic development to the blastocyst stage compared to control (40.5, 46.3, 51.7 and 60.2% for control, 0 to 22 h, 22 to 44 h and 0 to 44 h of IVM, respectively, P < 0.05). Glutathione (GSH) content is an indicator of cytoplasmic maturation of oocytes. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) have a harmful effect on developmental competence of oocytes. For this, we determined the intraoocyte levels of GSH and ROS after 44 h of IVM. It was found that SAL increased intraoocyte GSH level and also decreased ROS level (P < 0.05). Finally, we performed somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) after treating oocytes with 10 nM SAL during IVM. SAL treatment significantly improved blastocyst formation of SCNT embryos compared to control (39.6% vs. 24.7%, P < 0.05). Our results indicate that treatment of pig oocytes with ER stress inhibitor SAL during IVM improves preimplantation development PA and cloned pig embryos by influencing cytoplasmic maturation in terms of increased GSH content and decreased ROS level in IVM pig oocytes.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.137-145
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• 2005

본 연구는 NCSU-23과 PZM-3 배양액에 EGF, $\beta-ME$와 glucose의 첨가가 돼지 난자의 체외성숙에 미치는 영향과, 배양조건을 다르게 하여 계대배양한 섬유아세포를 이용한 핵이식 배를 다른 배양액과 산소조건에서 배양하였을 때 체외발생율에 미치는 영향을 조사하였다. 난자를 20ng/ml EGF를 첨가 또는 첨가하지 않은 NCSU-23 및 PZM-3 배양액에서 44시간 배양하였을 때 난자의 체외성숙율은 각각 $85.7\pm3.1\%,\;75.2\pm2.8\%,\;87.1\pm2.4\%$와 $78.2\pm2.6\%$였으며 EGF를 첨가한 배양액에서 배양한 난자의 체외성숙율은 EGF를 첨가하지 않은 배양액에서 배양했을 때의 난자보다 높은 체외성숙율을 나타냈다(p<0.05). 난자를 $25{\mu}M\;\beta-ME$를 첨가 또는 첨가하지 않은 NCSU-23 및 PZM-3 배양액에서 44시간 배양하였을 때 난자의 체외성숙율은 각각 $79.5\pm2.6\%,\;74.7\pm2.5\%,\;80.2\pm2.3\%,\;78.6\pm2.7\%$였고 $\beta-ME$를 첨 가한 PZM-3 배양액에서 배양한 난자의 체외성숙율이 가장 높게 나타났다. 난자를 1.5mM glucose를 첨가 또는 첨가하지 않은 NCSU-23 및 PZM-3 배양액에서 44시간 배양하였을 때 난자의 체외성숙율은 각각 $79.2\pm2.3\%,\;75.0\pm2.6\%,\;85.5\pm2.5\%$와 $78.9\pm2.7\%$였고, glucose를 첨가한 PZM-3 배양액에서 배양한 난자의 체외성숙율은 glucose를 첨가하지 않은 PZM-3 배양액에서 배양한 난자보다 높은 체외성숙율을 나타냈다(p<0.05). 핵이식 배를 20ng/m1 EGF, $25{\mu}M\;\beta-ME$ 및 1.5mM glucose를 첨가한 NCSU-23 및 PZM-3 배양액에서 48시간, 144시간 배양하였을 때 2세포기 및 배반포로의 체외발생율은 각각 $56.4\pm2.7\%,\;54.3\pm2.9\%,\;70.5\pm2.1\%,\; 69.6\pm1.5\%$ 및 $12.0\pm1.3\%,\;9.6\pml.7\%,\;10.9\pm2.1\%,\;11.9\pm1.8\%$였다.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.147-156
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• 2005

본 연구는 NCSU-23과 PZM-3 배양액에 EGF, $\beta-ME$와 glucose의 첨가가 돼지 난자의 체외성숙에 미치는 영향과 배양조건을 다르게 하여 계대배양한 섬유아세포를 이용한 핵이식배를 다른 배양액과 산소조건에서 배양하였을 때 체외발생율에 미치는 영향을 조사하였다. 핵이식 배를 20ng/ml EGF를 첨가 또는 첨가하지 않은 NCSU-23 및 PZM-3 배양액에서 배양하였을 때 배반포로의 체외 발생율은 각각 $12.0\pm1.3\%,\;9.6\pm1.9\%,\;10.9\pm2.1\%,\;9.1\pm2.3\%$였다. 핵이식 배를 $25{\mu}M\;\beta-ME$를 첨가 또는 첨가하지 않은 NCSU-23 및 PZM-3 배양액에서 144시간 배양하였을 때 배반포로의 체외 발생율은 각각 $9.6\pm1.7\%,\;7.3\pm2.3\%,\;11.9\pm1.8\%$와 $7.4\pm2.1\%$였다. $\beta-ME$를 첨가한 PZM-3 배양액에서 배양하였을 때 배반포로의 체외 발생율은 $\beta-ME$를 첨가하지 않은 배양액에서 배양한 배보다 높은 체외발생율을 나타냈다. (p<0.05). 핵이식 배를 1.5mM glucose를 첨가 또는 첨가하지 않은 NCSU-23 및 PZM-3 배양액에서 배양하였을 때 배반포로의 체외 발생율은 각각 $9.4\pm2.2\%,\;6.8\pm2.7\%,\;10.9\pm2.4\%$와$8.9\pm2.6\%$였다. Glucose를 첨가한 NCSU-23과 PZM-3 배양액에서 배양하였을 때 배반포로의 체외 발생율은 glucose를 첨가하지 않은 배양액에서 배양한 배보다 높은 체외 발생율을 나타냈다. 핵이식 배를 NCSU-23 및 PZM-3 배양액과 $5\%$ 및 $20\%$ 산소 조건에서 배양하였을 때 배반포로의 체외 발생율은 각각 $11.1\pm1.8\%,\;9.8\pm1.4\%,\;12.5\pm1.6\%$와$10.9\pml.5\%$였다. NUSU-23과 PZM-3 배양액에서 $5\%$ 산소 조건에서 배양하였을 때 $20\%$산소 조건에서 배양한 난자보다 높은 체외 발생율을 나타났다. 섬유아세포를 NCSU-23 배양액에서 배양하여 공여자세포로 이용하여 10 및 $11\~15\;passage$ 이내로 계대배양하였을 때의 융합율은 $60.0\~73.3\%,\;52.5\%$였다. 섬유아세포를 PZM-3 배양액에서 배양하여 공여자세포로 이용하여 10 및 $11\~15passage$ 이내의 계대배양시의 융합율은 $60.4\~75.1\%$ 및 $58.7\%$였다.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.267-272
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• 2010

The present study was to investigate the source of contamination during semen processing for in vitro uses. In the present study, frozen semen was prepared from liquid semen in our laboratory for in vitro fertilization (IVF) experiments due to lack of fresh semen. Antibiotics were added in the frozen semen extender (kanamycin and gentamicin) and in vitro culture (IVC) medium (gentamicin) for further inhibiting growth of microorganisms. Nevertheless, proliferations of microorganisms were observed in IVC culture drop during culturing of IVF embryos using frozen semen. Randomly 3 samples were taken from the liquid semen, frozen semen and egg yolk. Contaminated IVC medium, frozen-thawed semen, liquid semen and egg yolk were cultured in de Man, Rogosa and Sharpe (MRS) agar medium. Whitish colonies were detected in contaminated IVC drop, frozen-thawed semen samples and egg yolk but no colonies were formed in liquid semen samples. Gram-negative and rod-shaped identical bacteria were found in both frozen-thawed semen sample and contaminated IVC drop and egg yolk samples. Enterobacter cloacae were confirmed by API 20E kit according to manufacturer's instruction with identification value (% ID) 94.3% and T index 0.88. Antibiotic susceptibility tests were done according to Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) by using ampicillin, amikacin, cephalothin, gentamicin, kanamycin, tetracycline, oxytetracycline, sulfamethoxazole trimethoprim, norfloxacin and ciprofloxacin test. Among them Enterobacter cloacae were resistant to ampicillin, amikacin, cephalothin, gentamicin, kanamycin but susceptible to tetracycline, oxytetracycline, sulfamethoxazole trimethoprim, norfloxacin and ciprofloxacin. From these findings it could be suggested that this contamination sources might be from egg yolk.

• Reproductive and Developmental Biology
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.269-279
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• 2013

Low efficiency of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is attributed to incomplete reprogramming of transfered nuclei into oocytes. Trichostatin A (TSA), histone deacetylase inhibitor and 5-aza-2'deoxycytidine (5-aza-dC), DNA methylation inhibitor has been used to enhance nuclear reprogramming following SCNT. However, it was not known molecular mechanism by which TSA and 5-aza-dC improve preimplantation embryo and fetal development following SCNT. The present study investigates embryo viability and gene expression of cloned porcine preimplantation embryos in the presence and absence of TSA and 5-aza-dC as compared to embryos produced by parthenogenetic activation. Our results indicated that TSA treatment significantly improved development. However 5-aza-dC did not improve development. Presence of TSA and 5-aza-dC significantly improved total cell number, and also decreased the apoptotic and autophagic index. Three apoptotic-related genes, Bak, Bcl-xL, and Caspase 3 (Casp3), and three autophagic-related genes, ATG6, ATG8, and lysosomal-associated membrane protein 2 (LAMP2), were measured by real time RT-PCR. TSA and 5-aza-dC treatment resulted in high expression of anti-apoptotic gene Bcl-xL and low pro-apoptotic gene Bak expression compared to untreated NT embryos or parthenotes. Furthermore, LC3 protein expression was lower in NT-TSA and NT-5-aza-dC embryos than those of NT and parthenotes. In addition, TSA and 5-aza-dC treated embryos displayed a global acetylated histone H3 at lysine 9 and methylated DNA H3 at lysine 9 profile similar to the parthenogenetic blastocysts. Finally, we determined that several DNA methyltransferase genes Dnmt1, Dnmt3a and Dnmt3b. NT blastocysts showed higher levels Dnmt1 than those of the TSA and 5-aza-dC blastocysts. Dnmt3a is lower in 5-aza-dC than NT, NTTSA and parthenotes. However, Dnmt3b is higher in 5-aza-dC than NT and NTTSA. These results suggest that TSA and 5-aza-dC positively regulates nuclear reprogramming which result in modulation of apoptosis and autophagy related gene expression and then reduce apoptosis and autophagy. In addition, TSA and 5-aza-dC affects the acetylated and methylated status of the H3K9.

• Reproductive and Developmental Biology
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.237-243
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• 2008

The objective of this study was to examine the effect of caffeine and sodium bicarbonate in a fertilization medium on the fertilizability of boar spermatozoa that were frozen in straws. Boar spermatozoa were extended with Beltsville F5 extender and frozen in 0.25-ml straws. In vitro matured porcine oocytes were fertilized in vitro (IVF) with frozen-thawed boar spermatozoa for 6h in a modified tris-buffered medium (mTBM) or in its modified medium by substituting the tris with 25mM sodium bicarbonate (modified bicarbonate-buffered medium; mBBM). Some of inseminated oocytes were fixed and stained for examination of sperm penetration. IVF embryos were cultured in a North Carolina State University-23 medium for embryo development. The percentage of live sperm was $47{\pm}4%$ and morphological abnormality of acrosome was found in $14{\pm}3%$ of spermatozoa. Optimal sperm concentration for IVF was $0.75{\sim}1.0{\times}1.0{\times}10^6$ sperms/ml when mTBM containing 5mM caffeine was used as the fertilization medium. Sperm penetration was significantly (p<0.05) stimulated by increasing caffeine concentration in the IVF medium. In addition, mBBM significantly (p<0.05) increased sperm penetration (92%) compared to mTBM (65%). More (p<0.05) blastocysts (22% vs. 32%) developed from the oocytes that were fertilized in mBBM containing 1mM caffeine than from those fertilized in mTBM with 5mM caffeine. Our results indicate that boar spermatozoa can be frozen successfully in straws with holding their normal fertilizability and that caffeine and sodium bicarbonate stimulates sperm penetration in vitro.