Abstract
Various fatty acids are found in large amounts in follicular fluid and the uterus. These fatty acids are known to regulate lipid metabolism in a mammal’s embryo. Lipid metabolism provides a source of energy, and its importance during embryogenesis is being increasingly recognised. Especially, the pig has larger amounts of intercellular lipid bilayers in the embryo than do other species, which indicates the porcine embryo is more dependent on fatty acid on their metabolic pathway. This study investigated the transcriptome analysis data of in vivo embryos and the effect of oleic acid (C18:1n-9) and stearic acid (C18:0) on in vitro-produced porcine embryos. In transcriptome analysis of in vivo embryos, we found several genes were increasing before and after maternal zygotic transition stage, and interactions were mapped and given a significance score. Among these genes, stearoyl-coenzyme A desaturase (SCD) gene was significantly increased during 8-cell to blastocyst stage. Stearoyl-coenzyme A desaturase is responsible for converting saturated fatty acid (stearic acid) to monounsaturated fatty acid (oleic acid). Furthermore, we treated with oleic acid (50, 100, 250, and 500 μM) and stearic acid (50, 75, and 100 μM) on 2 day and 4 day after parthenogenetic embryos. Both oleic acid and stearic acid concentration over 100 μM had a negative effect on blastocyst formation rate and cell numbers because of exogenous fatty acid toxicity. In addition, there was no significant difference among all stearic acid treated groups and total cell number of oleic acid treated blastocyst. However, the 2-day oleic acid treated group (45.92 ± 4.01, n = 8, 2 day, 100 μM) had a significant increase of blastocyst formation rate (P < 0.05) compared with the control group (34.88 ± 2.93, n = 8). These data could support that porcine embryos can use exogenous oleic acid as a metabolic energy source. The data also demonstrate the important role of SCD in porcine early embryo development. To confirm the transcriptome analysis, we are investigating mRNA level of SCD on in vitro-produced embryos at 1-cell to morula and blastocyst stage on the control group, oleic acid treated group, fetal bovine serum treated group, and nontreated group. Furthermore, we are investigating SCD inhibition assay by A939572 (SCD inhibitor) on parthenogenetic embryos in a fetal bovine serum treated group and nontreated group for identifying blastocyst formation rate and total cell numbers. This work was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (2014R1A1A2055199) and Next BioGreen 21 program (PJ0113002016), Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea.
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