Relationship between bull field fertility and in vitro embryo production using sperm preparation methods with and without somatic cell co-culture.

摘要

The aim of the study was to compare rates of embryonic development in vitro of oocytes fertilized by spermatozoa from bulls differing in fertility. Three sperm preparation methods were used: (1) sperm coculture with bovine oviductal epithelial cells(BOEC); (2) sperm coculture with buffalo rat liver cells (BRLC); (3) control culture in a cell-free culture medium. Semen was obtained from 9 bulls classified by lifetime 60- to 90-day non-return rates as having high (73.2±3%), medium (70.3±2%) or low (65.8±3%) fertility. There was no difference in embryo cleavage rate (57-58%) among the bull fertility groups. Development to morula or beyond of oocytes fertilized by the high-fertility (53±30%) and low-fertility (58±27%) semen tended to be higher than that of those fertilized by the medium-fertility semen (33±28%). In pooled data for all bull groups, there was no difference in embryo cleavage rates between BOEC monolayers (51±22%), BRLC monolayers (60±20%) and the control medium (60±17%). Further embryonic development to compact morula and beyond was higher (P<0.01) for BRLC (61+-28%) than for BOEC (42±33%) and control (39±24%) media.