SUCCESSFUL IN-VITRO CULTURE OF EARLY CLEAVAGE STAGE EMBRYOS RECOVEREDFROM SUPEROVULATED RED DEER (CERVUS-ELAPHUS)

Three separate embryo culture systems were evaluated for their ability to support development of early cleavage stage red deer (Cervus elaph us) embryos: ligated sheep oviducts (Treatment A); cervine oviduct epi thelial monolayer in TCM 199 + 10% deer serum (Treatment B); synthetic oviduct fluid + 20% human serum at 7% O-2 atmosphere (Treatment C). I n addition, 2 superovulation protocols were compared for their efficac y in producing early cleavage stage embryos. Twenty red deer (2 to 7 y r old) were synchronized in April with intravaginal CIDR(TM) devices f or 12 d. All animals received a total of 0.4 units of ovine FSH admini stered in 8 equal doses, 12 h apart, beginning 72 h before removal of CIDR(TM) devices. The deer additionally received 200 IU PMSG, either w ith the first FSH injection (Group 1, n=10) or with the last FSH injec tion (Group 2, n=10). Hinds were placed with fertile stags following w ithdrawal of CIDR devices. Ova were collected by surgical recovery 63 h post CIDR removal. At the time of collection, animals in Group 2 had a significantly greater mean (+/- SEM) ovulation rate (11.2+/-2.4 vs 5.3 + 2.4), with more animals responding to treatment (>1 ovulation), than the animals in Group 1 (10/10 vs 4/10). Late in the breeding seas on(June), 10 additional red deer (Group 3, Experiment 2) were superovu lated using the same protocol as for the deer in Group 2, with ova col lection advanced by 24 h. Mean (+/- SEM) ovulation rate was 6.4 +/- 1. 2 with 9/10 animals responding. Ova recovery did not differ among the groups (range 73 to 87%). Superovulation treatment did not affect cult ured embryo development to the morula/blastocyst stage. Furthermore, t here was no difference among the 3 culture systems in their support of development either to the morula (range 50 to 58%) or to the blastocy st (range 22 to 26%) stage. After laparoscopic transfer of 4 morula/bl astocyst embryos to recipient red deer (2 from Treatment B and 2 from Treatment C) 2 live calves were born from embryos cultured in Treatmen t B.