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Progesterone and Androstenedione Are Important Follicular Fluid Factors Regulating Porcine Oocyte Maturation Quality

Authors :
Huaxing Zhao
Xiaohua He
Xianjun Zhang
Junsong Shi
Rong Zhou
Ranbiao Mai
Qiaoyun Su
Gengyuan Cai
Sixiu Huang
Zheng Xu
Zhenfang Wu
Zicong Li
Source :
Animals, Vol 13, Iss 11, p 1811 (2023)
Publication Year :
2023
Publisher :
MDPI AG, 2023.

Abstract

Oocytes matured in vitro are useful for assisted human and farm animal reproduction. However, the quality of in vitro matured oocytes is usually lower than that of in vivo matured oocytes, possibly due to the absence of some important signal regulators in vitro. In this study, untargeted metabolomics was used to detect the changes in the metabolites in the follicular fluid (FF) during in vivo pig oocyte maturation and in the culture medium during in vitro maturation. Our results showed that the total metabolite changing profile of the in vivo FF was different from that of the in vitro maturation medium, but the levels of 23 differentially expressed metabolites (DEMs) changed by following the same trend during both in vivo and in vitro pig oocyte maturation. These 23 metabolites may be important regulators of porcine oocyte maturation. We found that progesterone and androstenedione, two factors in the ovarian steroidogenesis pathway enriched from the DEMs, were upregulated in the FF during in vivo pig oocyte maturation. The levels of these two factors were 31 and 20 fold, respectively, and they were higher in the FF than in the culture medium at the oocyte mature stage. The supplementation of progesterone and androstenedione during in vitro maturation significantly improved the pig oocyte maturation rate and subsequent embryo developmental competence. Our finding suggests that a metabolic abnormality during in vitro pig oocyte maturation affects the quality of the matured oocytes. This study identified some important metabolites that regulate oocyte maturation and their developmental potential, which will be helpful to improve assisted animal and human reproduction.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
20762615
Volume :
13
Issue :
11
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Animals
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.773259e4e64f45339e2f6492fcf4c026
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13111811