Plasma anti-müllerian hormone allows reproductive selection of donors with greater potential of embryo production

Abstract

Reproductive technologies, such as ovum-pick-up (OPU) and in vitro embryo production (IVEP) are important tools to accelerate genetic gain associated with reproductive efficiency. The antral follicular population (AFP) can directly affect the success of OPU and may be used as a characteristic to select the oocyte donor cows with greater reproductive potential that will be used in OPUIVEP programs. Although highly repeatable within animal, the AFP appears to be extremely variable across individuals. Thus, the investigation of consistent endocrine markers that can trustable predict AFP in cattle has been targeted in several recent studies. In this context, the plasmatic levels of anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) have been reported to be correlated with the size of AFP and it has the potential of being an endocrine marker to help the identification of donor cows with greater number of follicles available for OPU, greater superovulation response and, consequently, increased in vivo and in vitro embryo production in cattle. This review summarizes recent information regarding AFP and its relationship with AMH, and the possibility of using AMH as a marker for the selection of donor cows that will start reproductive programs to disseminate genetics and eventually to enhance fertility in cattle.

Keywords

• AMH
• follicle
• embryo