The Effects of Antioxidants, N-acetyl-L-cystein, N-acetyl-L-cystein Amide, Glutathione or Cysteamine on the Development of in vitro Fertilized bovine Oocytes

Abstract

To increase the productivity of in vitro development, the antioxidants have been used for culture system of bovine oocytes and embryos. However, comparative studies on these molecules are rare and direct beneficial effects on blastocyst production cannot be discriminated for best results. The study was conducted to determine the influence of N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC), N-acetyl-L-cysteine amide (NACA), glutathione (GSH) and cysteamime (CYS) on maturation competence of COCs from GV to MII stage and productivity of blastocyst formation during in vitro fertilization and culture. There was no difference among maturation rates of oocytes to metaphase II with polar body with antioxidants for any of the treatment groups (p>0.05). However, the significant improvement on the rate of blastocysts (32.3±5.0%) was found in 0.1 mM CYS treatment than 0.3 mM NAC, 0.2 mM NACA or 0.5mM GSH (p0.05). Our study showed that medium supplementation with CYS during IVM and IVC improved the rate of bovine embryo development but not with NAC, NACA and GSH addition.

Keywords

• antioxidants
• bovine embryo
• in vitro development