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Review
. 2023 Oct 4;10(10):604.
doi: 10.3390/vetsci10100604.

Nutritional Strategies to Promote Bovine Oocyte Quality for In Vitro Embryo Production: Do They Really Work?

Miguel A Velazquez  1
Affiliations
Review

Nutritional Strategies to Promote Bovine Oocyte Quality for In Vitro Embryo Production: Do They Really Work?

Miguel A Velazquez. Vet Sci. .

Abstract

The ability of bovine oocytes to reach the blastocyst stage (i.e., embryo with around 150 cells in cattle) in vitro can be affected by technical (e.g., culture medium used) and physiological factors in oocyte donors (e.g., age, breed). As such, the nutritional status of oocyte donors plays a significant role in the efficiency of in vitro embryo production (IVEP), and several nutritional strategies have been investigated in cattle subjected to ovum pick-up (OPU). However, there is no clear consensus on the reliability of nutritional schemes to improve IVEP in cattle. Available evidence suggests that a moderate body condition score (i.e., 3 in a 1-5 scale) in cattle is compatible with a metabolic microenvironment in ovarian follicles that will promote embryo formation in vitro. The usefulness of fatty acid and micronutrient supplementation to improve IVEP in cattle is debatable with the current information available. Overall, the supply of maintenance nutritional requirements according to developmental and productive stage seems to be enough to provide bovine oocyte donors with a good chance of producing embryos in vitro. Future nutrition research in cattle using OPU-IVEP models needs to consider animal well-being aspects (i.e., stress caused by handling and sampling), which could affect the results.

Keywords: cattle; in vitro culture; nutrition; oocyte competence; preimplantation embryo.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Main steps in standard in vitro production of embryos for commercial purposes in cattle. Oocytes are usually collected via ovum pick-up (OPU) on live animals. In vitro maturation (IVM) can be done in portable incubators sent overnight to the laboratory. In vitro fertilisation (IVF) and in vitro embryo culture (IVEC) are performed at the laboratory. Components are not drawn to scale.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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This research received no external funding.