Exposure to colony stimulating factor 2 during preimplantation development increases postnatal growth in cattle

Abstract

The microenvironment of a preimplantation embryo can influence changes in development that affect postnatal phenotypes. One of the potential mediators of this effect in many species is colony-stimulating factor (CSF2), which can increase an embryo's ability to establish pregnancy after its transfer into recipients. Exposure of embryos to CSF2 during early development can also affect the pattern of development later in pregnancy in a sex-dependent manner. We therefore hypothesized that treatment of in vitro-produced embryos with CSF2 in culture would alter birth weight and postnatal growth of the resultant calf. Body weight and withers height were measured for Holstein heifer calves produced in vitro with or without 10 ng/ml CSF2 and for calves produced by artificial insemination. There were no differences in birth weight between groups; thereafter, however, calves from the CSF2-treated group experienced greater increases in body weight through 13 months of age, with only small differences in withers height. These results support the model that an embryo's postnatal characteristics can be programmed during the preimplantation period, and that CSF2 is one of the embryokines through which programming is directed. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 82: 892-897, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Insulin and branched-chain amino acid depletion during mouse preimplantation embryo culture programmes body weight gain and raised blood pressure during early postnatal life

“…It also gives support to our hypothesis that insulin and BCAA are important nutritional mediators involved in the programming of postnatal disease by protein undernutrition at the early embryo stage [4] . Our study further confirms in general terms the critical relevance of the mammalian preimplantation period as a developmental window where programming with long-term consequences for health and disease risk can be exerted and evident in both rodent and large animal species [5] , [21] , [22] , [25] , [26] , [27] , [28] , [29] , [30] , [31] , [32] , [33] , [34] .…”

Effects of sex on response of the bovine preimplantation embryo to insulin-like growth factor 1, activin A, and WNT7A

“…Indeed, there could be other aspects of development of the blastocyst not studied here, including downstream effects that occur much later in development, that could differ between female and male embryos. Embryokines like CSF2 [ 33 , 34 ] and DKK1 [ 35 ] can act on the preimplantation embryo to affect fetal and postnatal phenotypes. Despite the lack of difference on development to blastocyst stage, the observation that expression of three genes was affected by the IGF1 by sex interaction is indicative that IGF1 might exert sex-dependent actions affecting other aspects of embryo function besides development to the blastocyst stage (e.g., apoptosis, allocation of cells into specific lineages, epigenetic regulation, etc.).…”

Regulation of gene expression in the bovine blastocyst by colony stimulating factor 2

“…CSF2 is one of the best-studied embryokines and has been shown to affect developmental processes in preimplantation embryo of the cow, mouse, human, and pig [ 2 , 3 ]. In the cow, the species studied here, treatment of embryos with CSF2 from Day 5–7 of development can increase the proportion of embryos becoming blastocysts [ 4 – 6 ], block apoptosis of morula-stage embryos in response to heat shock [ 7 ], improve ability of isolated inner cell mass (ICM) to survive passage while remaining in a pluripotent state [ 6 ], increase the proportion of embryos developing to term after transfer into recipient females [ 8 , 9 ] and result in calves with increased growth rate after birth [ 10 ].…”