| dc.description.abstract | The in vitro culturing process of porcine oocytes has increasingly drawn the
attention of embryologists worldwide thanks to the species’ great similarity with
humans as well as other cattle’s genomes, and thus, its potential contribution to a
wide range of scientific expertise. The approach includes providing immature
oocytes with an environment that mimics as perfectly as possible the in vivo
niches, thus improving the quality and viability of the cultured reproductive cells.
However, the culturing practices have reportedly been hampered by Reactive
Oxygen Species (ROS) which are proven to be fatal for interfering with the
cellular structures and processes, eventually decreasing the lateral competence of
oocytes. Therefore, antioxidants are added as supplements to cope with the
problem. Non-enzymatic antioxidants such as Melatonin and Astaxanthin have
already been proven for their effectiveness on the in vitro maturation assay of
oocytes. Nevertheless, their effects on the in vitro growth of early antral ones
remain unanswered. My experiment focuses on exploring the effect of
Astaxanthin and Melatonin on the in vitro growth of porcine early antral follicles’
(EAFs) oocytes via examining key genes’ expression. The application of low gelling agarose coating to better support the culture procedure exhibited
remarkable effects. The result shows that antioxidant supplementation possibly
improved the survival rates of IVG oocytes, proven by increased expression of
anti-apoptosis BCl2 gene (though not significantly). As for in vitro maturation,
although Astaxanthin did not affect the maturation rate, Melatonin seemed
potential in improving the parameter, proven by adequate cumulus expansion and
expression of related genes such as BMP15, BCl2, SOD-1, and CAT; nevertheless,
more replicates need to be carried out to find out the most optimal concentration.
In general, supplemented antioxidants had effects on the inner-cellular
antioxidation system and improved oocyte quality via increased expression of
gene related to growth, anti-apoptosis, and antioxidation enzyme. Astaxanthin is a
potentially effective antioxidant alternative which can be applied for oocyte
culturing practices | en_US |
