Impact of supplementary royal jelly on in vitro maturation of sheep oocytes: genes involved in apoptosis and embryonic development.

Valiollahpoor Amiri, Mohammad; Deldar, Hamid; Ansari Pirsaraei, Zarbakht

Optimizing culture conditions lead to the improvement of oocyte developmental competence and additives with anti-oxidative activity in culture media improved embryonic development. Royal jelly (RJ) is a product from the cephalic glands of nurse bees that has considerable health effects. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of different concentrations of RJ on the maturation, cleavage, and blastocyst rates and gene expression in the oocyte and cumulus cells duringin vitromaturation (IVM) of sheep oocyte. IVM of oocyte was performed in the presence of control (RJ0), 2.5 (RJ2.5), 5 (RJ5), 10 (RJ10), 20 (RJ20), and 40 (RJ40) mg/mL of RJ. Following the maturation period, parthenogenetic activation was carried out in two treatment groups (RJ0and RJ10) and embryonic development was examined three and eight days thereafter. Moreover, the relative expression ofBCL2andBAXin oocyte as well asBCL2, BAX, HAS2, PTGS2, andSTARin cumulus cells were assessed. The results indicated that the addition of 10 mg/mL of RJ (90 ± 4.51%) to the maturation medium linearly increased the oocyte maturation rate compared to the control group (57 ± 2.42%), then it remained constant to the RJ40(93 ± 3.10%) group. The higher RJ concentrations were associated with increased (p < 0.01) cleavage (53.3 ± 1.55% to 82.3 ± 2.82%) and blastocyst rate (15.5 ± 1.16% to 33.8 ± 3.09%) from the RJ0to the RJ10group. The relative mRNA expression ofBCL2andBAXin the oocyte was higher at RJ10. In cumulus cells, the expression ofBCL2was not affected, but that ofBAXdecreased, and expression ofHAS2, PTGS2, andSTARwere increased following the addition of RJ to the maturation media. In conclusion, the addition of 10 mg/mL of RJ to maturation medium improved blastocyst formation and decreased the apoptotic incidence in sheep cumulus cells and the oocyte during thein vitrodevelopment.

ROYAL jelly; OVUM; APOPTOSIS; EMBRYOLOGY; BEE products; SHEEP

Systems Biology in Reproductive Medicine, 2016, Vol 62, Issue 1, p31

1939-6368

Academic Journal

10.3109/19396368.2015.1088102