Dados do Trabalho

Title

FGF4 supplementation, in in vitro culture of bovine embryos, does not alter embryo kinetics

Objective

The fibroblast growth factor (FGF) family has many roles in initial embryo development and can be highlighted as crucial in cell signaling, survival, and division. The transition between totipotent-pluripotent cells is a crucial event to promote the success of embryo development. Moreover, the second cell differentiation event will promote the inner cell mass (ICM) to differentiate into two new cell lines: epiblast (origin of germ layers) and hypoblast (origin of extraembryonic tissues). In special, FGF4 has been reported at the initial embryo development of many species and its exogenous supplementation is inferred to block the epiblast lineage favoring the hypoblast lineage during the ICM’s differentiation, which may have multiple applications at cattle as an important biotechnology tool at manipulating the embryo’s gene expression and advancing the field of embryo chimerism. Thus, this research aimed to test FGF4’s influence on the number of cells per blastocyst, the diameter of the blastocyst and ICM, to evaluate FGF4 supplementation is detrimental to the embryo at kinetics parameters.

Methods

Therefore, bovine embryos were produced in vitro and different FGF4 concentrations (0, 10, 100, and 1,000ng/mL) were added on IVC from 120 to 204 hours post-insemination. At least 40 oocytes were used per experimental group at each one of the 8 replicates. After 7 and 8.5 days, the number of cells, blastocyst’s diameter, and ICM’s diameter were measured with the ImageJ software. The data was analyzed by the ANOVA test, differences with the probability of p<0.05 were considered significant.

Results

None of the groups showed statistical difference at cell count (p=0.74), blastocyst’s diameter (p=0.14) and ICM’s diameter (p=0.07),

Conclusion

It can be inferred that FGF4 has not prejudiced the bovine embryo’s parameters tested at the supplemented concentrations, opening gates for future research involving this molecule.

Keywords

Bovine blastocyst, cell differentiation, FGF4, hypoblast, inner cell mass.