Vol. 10, Special Issue 4 (2021)

Author(s):
Ramkumaar RK and Ananthakumar KV

Abstract:
Considerable effort has been devoted to the development of in vitro fertilization and in vitro maturation of oocytes from farm animals. In vivo embryo production in goats has been studied foryears. The variability of the hormonal treatment, fertilization failure and the premature regression of corpora luteum were still needed to be improved. The in vitro production (IVP) of embryos offers the possibility of overcoming multiple ovulation embryo transfer limitations. The method of IVP of embryos involves three main steps: in vitro maturation of oocytes (IVM), in vitro fertilization of oocytes (IVF) with capacitated sperm and in vitro culture (IVC) of embryos up to blastocyst stage. In vitro embryo production technology also presents the following advantages: (i) a significant increase of embryos from high genetic value females, because oocytes can be recovered from prepubertal, pregnant and even dead or slaughtered goats, (ii) provides an excellent source of low cost embryos for basic research, embryo biotechnology studies (nuclear transfer, transgenesis, embryo sexing and stem cells) and all kinds of embryo research which require high number of embryos for manipulation and (iii) used as a strategy for the rescue of some endangered animal species by inter specific embryo transfer. Pre-implanted growth and development of embryo is deficient in many aspects and was evidenced by the great difficulty in growing embryos in vitro, while maintaining viability as shown by development of early embryos in vitro generally delayed or completely blocked at 8–16 cell stage embryo and hardly small percentage of the In vitro fertilized embryo develop to morula and blastocyst, which is probably due to minor physio-chemical variation and lack of certain factors in the culture system. In vitro development of mammalian embryos usually remains inferior to development than in vivo produced embryos.