Effect of culture conditions, donor source, and injection site on in vitro development of deoxyribonucleic acid microinjected porcine zygotes

A series of experiments were used to evaluate three culture media and two incubation temperatures for their ability to support development of DNA microinjected porcine zygotes. Development in vitro was compared between embryos collected from postpubertal and prepubertal donors and between embryos injected with DNA into the pronucleus and the cytoplasm. Additionally, embryos were analyzed by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the presence of the transgene. One-cell embryos (n=458) were recovered from 36 postpubertal gilts in Experiment 1. Injected and control embryos were cultured in modified media NCSU-23 (mNCSU-23), NCSU-37 (mNCSU-37), and CZB at 37°C and 38.8°C for 7 d. In Experiment 2, one-cell embryos (n=245) were collected from postpubertal (n=15) and prepubertal (n=14) gilts, microinjected with DNA, and cultured in medium mNCSU-23. Superovulated prepubertal gilts (n=22) were flushed in Experiment 3 to yield 343 one-cell embryos which had DNA injected into the cytoplasm or pronucleus. Whole embryos were assessed by PCR. Mean percentages of embryos developing to the expanded or hatched blastocyst stage in mNCSU-23 and mNCSU-37 did not differ from each other (p>.05), but both were greater than the development in CZB (p<.05). Development was greater at 38.8°C (p<.05) than at 37° C. Microinjection of DNA decreased the developmental percentage (p<.05) from that of non-injected controls. Embryos collected from postpubertal gilts had a higher percentage (68.0 ± 3.4) of expanded and hatched blastocysts than embryos from prepubertal donors (29.0 ± 4.6, p<.05). No difference was seen in development between embryos injected in the pronucleus or cytoplasm (p>. 05), but development for both was less than for control embryos (p<.05). Results of PCR analysis indicated that 40% of the embryos developing to the expanded blastocyst stage were positive for the transgene compared to a rate of 60% positive for degenerate embryos. These studies show that DNA microinjected porcine zygotes can be cultured to the expanded blastocyst stage in media mNCSU-23 and mNCSU-37 at 38.8°C. Microinjection of DNA decreases survival of embryos collected from both postpubertal and prepubertal sources, but postpubertal embryos exhibit a higher rate of development. Cytoplasmic injection does not improve embryo viability in vitro above that of pronuclear injection. Finally, whole embryo analysis by PCR is possible, but cross specificity of human Protein C and whey acidic protein (WAP) oligonucleotides for endogenous porcine DNA is strong and creates difficulty in applying PCR analysis to embryos microinjected with WAP-PC transgenes.