Porcine embryo production and non-surgical transfer in the pig, the Minitube of America approach to an unsolved problem

摘要

In the swine industry, although embryo transfer for research or commercial uses has been performed since 1968,' practical applications have however been limited because of the need for anesthesia and surgery associated with the lapatotomic or laparoscopic approaches. Currently embryo transfer supposes flushes of produce embryos from synchronized donors followed within a few hours by the surgical transfer in synchronized recipients of the collected embryos. In vivo flushed embryos give poor results when cryopreserved and require a rapid transfer into recipients after collection. Therefore, the commercial application of this technology has been strictly limited and its benefits have been minimal in comparison to what has been observed over the last few decades in the bovine industry.2