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Ultrastructural changes in goat interspecies and intraspecies reconstructed early embryos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2008

Yong Tao ,
Lizi Cheng ,
Meiling Zhang ,
Bin Li ,
Jianping Ding ,
Yunhai Zhang ,
Fugui Fang ,
Xiaorong Zhang  and
Poul Maddox-Hyttel
Yong Tao
Affiliation:
Faculty of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Department of Animal Sciences, College of Animal Science and Technology, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China.
Lizi Cheng
Affiliation:
Faculty of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Department of Animal Sciences, College of Animal Science and Technology, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China.
Meiling Zhang
Affiliation:
Faculty of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Department of Animal Sciences, College of Animal Science and Technology, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China.
Bin Li
Affiliation:
Faculty of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Department of Animal Sciences, College of Animal Science and Technology, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China.
Jianping Ding
Affiliation:
Faculty of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Department of Animal Sciences, College of Animal Science and Technology, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China.
Yunhai Zhang
Affiliation:
Faculty of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Department of Animal Sciences, College of Animal Science and Technology, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China. Department of Basic Animal and Veterinary Sciences, Anatomy and Cell Biology, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Groennegaardsvej 7, DK-1870 Frederiksberg C, Denmark.
Fugui Fang
Affiliation:
Faculty of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Department of Animal Sciences, College of Animal Science and Technology, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China.
Xiaorong Zhang*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Department of Animal Sciences, College of Animal Science and Technology, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China.
Poul Maddox-Hyttel
Affiliation:
Department of Basic Animal and Veterinary Sciences, Anatomy and Cell Biology, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Groennegaardsvej 7, DK-1870 Frederiksberg C, Denmark.
*
*All correspondence to: Zhang Xiaorong. Faculty of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, College of Animal Science and Technology, Anhui Agricultural University, Changjiang West Rd 130, Hefei, 230036, China. Tel: +86 551 5782 488. Fax: +86 551 5785 543. e-mail: zxr@ahau.edu.cn
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Summary

The low efficiency of somatic cell nuclear transfer may be related to the ultrastructural deviations of reconstructed embryos. The present study investigated ultrastructural differences between in vivo-produced and cloned goat embryos, including intra- and interspecies embryos. Goat ear fibroblast cells were used as donors, while the enucleated bovine and goat oocytes matured in vitro as recipients. Goat–goat (GG), goat–cattle (GC) and goat in vivo-produced embryos at the 2-cell, 4-cell, 8-cell and 16-cell stages were compared using transmission electron microscopy. These results showed that the three types of embryos had a similar tendency for mitochondrial change. Nevertheless, changes in GG embryos were more similar to changes in in vivo-produced embryos than were GC embryos, which had more extreme mitochondrial deviation. The results indicate the effects of the cytoplast on mitochondria development. The zona pellucida (ZP) in all three types of embryos became thinner and ZP pores in both GC and GG embryos showed an increased rate of development, especially for GC embryos, while in vivo-produced embryos had smooth ZP. The Golgi apparatus (Gi) and rough endoplasmic reticulum (RER) of the two reconstructed embryos became apparent at the 8-cell stage, as was found for in vivo embryos. The results showed that the excretion of reconstructed embryos was activated on time. Lipid droplets (LD) of GC and GG embryos became bigger, and congregated. In in vivo-produced embryos LD changed little in volume and dispersed gradually from the 4-cell period. The nucleolus of GC and GG embryos changed from electron dense to a fibrillo-granular meshwork at the 16-cell stage, showing that nucleus function in the reconstructed embryos was activated. The broken nuclear envelope and multiple nucleoli in one blastomere illuminated that the nucleus function of reconstructed embryos was partly changed. In addition, at a later stage in GC embryos the nuclear envelope displayed infoldings and the chromatin was concentrated, implying that the blastomeres had an obvious trend towards apoptosis. The gap junctions of the three types of embryos changed differently and GG and GC embryos had bigger perivitelline and intercellular spaces than did in vivo-produced embryos. These results are indicative of normal intercellular communication at an early stage, but this became weaker in later stages in reconstructed embryos. In conclusion, inter- and intraspecies reconstructed embryos have a similar pattern of developmental change to that of in vivo-produced embryos for ZP, rough ER, Gi and nucleolus, but differ for mitochondria, LD, vesicles, nucleus and gap junction development. In particular, the interspecies cloned embryos showed more severe destruction. These ultrastructural deviations might contribute to the compromised developmental potential of reconstructed embryos.

Keywords

EmbryoInterspecies somatic cell nuclear transferMitochondriaUltrastructureZona
Type
Research Article
Information
Zygote , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , May 2008 , pp. 93 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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