The characterization of bovine embryos obtained from prepubertal calf oocytes and their viability after non-surgical embryo transfer

摘要

Calf and cow oocytes were matured and fertilized in vitro and cultured for 7 days in medium containing 10 ng/ml epidermal growth factor. There was no difference between cow and calf blastocysts in total cell number (138±46 vs. 142±59), inner cell mass (ICM) cell number (35±19 vs. 38±21), trophectoderm cell number (107±52 vs. 99±32) and ICM/total cell number ratio (0.27±11 vs. 0.25±12). There were also no differences between cow and calf blastocysts in constitutive and neosynthetic protein profiles.After embryo transfer, pregnancy rate on day 35 was similar for cow and calf embryos, but calving rate was lower for calf than for cow embryos (22 vs. 39%).