Meta-analysis of melatonin treatment and porcine somatic cell nuclear transfer embryo development.

Zhenhua Guo,Wengui Chen,Lei Lv,Di Liu

doi:10.1590/1984-3143-ar2021-0031

Abstract

Porcine somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) plays an important role in many areas of research. However, the low efficiency of SCNT in porcine embryos limits its applications. Porcine embryos contain high concentrations of lipid, which makes them vulnerable to oxidative stress. Some studies have used melatonin to reduce reactive oxygen species damage. At present there are many reports concerning the effect of exogenous melatonin on porcine SCNT. Some studies suggest that the addition of melatonin can increase the number of blastocyst cells, while others indicate that melatonin can reduce the number of blastocyst cells. Therefore, a meta-analysis was carried out to resolve the contradiction. In this study, a total of 63 articles from the past 30 years were analyzed, and six papers were finally selected. Through the analysis, it was found that the blastocyst rate was increased by adding exogenous melatonin. Melatonin had no effect on cleavage rate or the number of blastocyst cells, but did decrease the number of apoptotic cells. This result is crucial for future research on embryo implantation.

Highlights

Porcine somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) plays an important role in many areas of research
There are many reports concerning the effect of exogenous melatonin on SCNT in porcine species (Nakano et al, 2012; Liang et al, 2017), Some studies suggest that melatonin can increase the number of blastocyst cells (Liang et al, 2017; Qu et al, 2020a), while other studies have suggested that the number of cells has been reduced (Nakano et al, 2012)
We found that exogenous melatonin increased the blastocyst rate

Summary

Introduction

Porcine somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) plays an important role in many areas of research. Porcine embryos contain high concentrations of lipids that provide energy for early embryonic development This biological characteristic makes the embryo vulnerable to the harmful effects of oxidative stress (Sturmey et al, 2009). There are many reports concerning the effect of exogenous melatonin on SCNT in porcine species (Nakano et al, 2012; Liang et al, 2017), Some studies suggest that melatonin can increase the number of blastocyst cells (Liang et al, 2017; Qu et al, 2020a), while other studies have suggested that the number of cells has been reduced (Nakano et al, 2012). We conducted a meta-analysis to resolve this contradiction

Methods

Results

Conclusion