Cytokine-Supplemented Maturation Medium Enhances Cytoplasmic and Nuclear Maturation in Bovine Oocytes

Abstract

Bovine in vitro oocyte maturation (IVM) is an easy way to obtain oocytes for subsequent assisted reproductive techniques but is inefficient compared to in vivo maturation. Supplementation of three cytokines, fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2), leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF), and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1), or FLI, has increased oocyte maturation and embryo development in multiple species, but studies have not explored the oocyte differences caused by FLI IVM supplementation. This study aimed to assess important nuclear and cytoplasmic maturation events in high-quality oocytes. FLI-supplemented oocytes had a decreased GV (3.0% vs. 13.7%, p p p p p p p < 0.05). These data suggest that FLI supplementation in bovine in vitro maturation medium coordinates nuclear and cytoplasmic maturation to produce higher-quality oocytes.

Keywords

• in vitro maturation
• cytokines
• FLI
• bovine oocytes
• meiotic spindle
• mitochondria