Suppressed expression of genes involved in transcription and translation in in vitro compared with in vivo cultured bovine embryos

Abstract

In vivo-derived bovine embryos are of higher quality than those derivedin vitro. Many of the differences in quality can be related to culture environment-induced changes in mRNA abundance. The aim of this study was to identify a range of mRNA transcripts that are differentially expressed between bovine blastocysts derived fromin vitroversusin vivoculture. Microarray (BOTL5) comparison betweenin vivo- andin vitro-cultured bovine blastocysts identified 384 genes and expressed sequence tags (ESTs) that were differentially expressed; 85% of these were down-regulated inin vitrocultured blastocysts, showing a much reduced overall level of mRNA expression inin vitro- compared within vivo-cultured blastocysts. Relative expression of 16 out of 23 (70%) differentially expressed genes (according toPvalue) were verified in new pools ofin vivo- andin vitro-cultured blastocysts, using quantitative real-time PCR. Most (10 out of 16) are involved in transcription and translation events, suggesting that the reason whyin vitro-derived embryos are of inferior quality compared within vivo-derived embryos is due to a deficiency of the machinery associated with transcription and translation.