Rabbit morula vitrification reduces early foetal growth and increases losses throughout gestation

Vicente, J.S.; Saenz-de-Juano, María Desemparats; Jiménez-Trigos, E.; Viudes-de-Castro, M.P.; Peñaranda, David S.; Marco‐Jiménez, Francisco

doi:10.1016/j.cryobiol.2013.09.165

Cited by 26 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Our findings provide the first evidence, to our knowledge, of a lower weight in foetus (w24%) and maternal placenta (w46%) at day 14 in vitrified group. These were according to previous results observed by ultrasonography by Vicente et al (2013). In rabbit, definitive mesometrial chorioallantoid placentation occurs at day 8 with the establishment of embryo-maternal exchange, controlled by temporal and local signals (Fischer et al 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 50%

Vitrification alters rabbit foetal placenta at transcriptomic and proteomic level

Saenz-de-Juano¹,

Marco‐Jiménez²,

Schmaltz-Panneau³

et al. 2014

Reproduction

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Although numerous studies have demonstrated that cryopreservation alters gene expression, less is known about those embryos that implanted successfully and continued in gestation. To raise the question of the neutrality of this technique, we examine the effects of vitrification through gestation in rabbit before and after the implantation. We monitored the distribution of losses of 569 vitrified morulae, observing that embryos which reach the last pre-implantatory stage are able to implant. However, we found that not all implanted embryos had the ability to continue with their gestation. The results reveal that vitrification decreased foetus and maternal placenta weights at mid-gestation, but led to a higher offspring birth weight. A novel finding is that while no differences in gene expression were detected in pre-implantatory embryos at day 6, vitrification affects a gene and protein expression in the placenta at day 14. Our results for first time reveal strong evidence of modifications in implanted embryos subjected to vitrification, suggesting that the crucial step that vitrified embryos must overcome is the placenta formation. On the basis of these findings, our work leaves the question open as to whether the effects we observed that cause vitrification during foetal development could give rise to some type of physiological or metabolic alteration in adulthood.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 50%

Vitrification alters rabbit foetal placenta at transcriptomic and proteomic level

Saenz-de-Juano¹,

Marco‐Jiménez²,

Schmaltz-Panneau³

et al. 2014

Reproduction

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“…To this end, rabbit embryo banking has allowed the preservation and spread of genetically superior animals over different countries [34] and the possibility of evaluating the genetic gain in maternal lines [4][5][6][7] without cumulative genetic drift variance [35]. Nevertheless, it is known that these techniques induce changes in environ-mental and maternal side effects modifying the embryo gene expression and methylation pattern [19,20,36], the transcriptomic and proteomic placental profile [21], and their viability [29,37], but little is known regarding the long-term effects on the derived progeny. Some authors postulate that these procedures do not induce major anomalies but can lead to morphologic and behavioral features in adult mice derived from frozen embryos [16].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Over the past decade, research works have questioned whether embryo cryopreservation and transfer procedures are neutral to survivors [16][17][18], as preimplantation em-bryos are removed from their natural environment and subjected to manipulation (cryopreservation and transfer procedures) which in fact affect their RNA expression [19,20], placental transcriptome, and proteome [21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embryo vitrification in rabbits: Consequences for progeny growth

et al. 2015

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The objective of this research is to examine if there are any effects of the rederivation procedures on rabbit growth pattern and on weight of different organ in adults. For this purpose, three experiments were conducted on two different groups of animals (control group and vitrified-transferred group) to evaluate the possible effect of embryo manipulation (vitrification and transfer procedures) on future growth traits. The first experiment studies body weight from 1 to 9 weeks of age from the two groups. The second experiment describes the growth curve of progeny from experimental groups and analyzes their Gompertz curve parameters, including the estimation of adult body weight. The third experiment has been developed to study if there are any differences in different organ weight in adult males from the two experimental groups. In general, the results indicate that rederivation procedures had effect on the phenotypic expression of growth traits. The results showed that rabbit produced by vitrification and embryo transfer had higher body weight in the first four weeks of age than control progeny. Results from body weight (a parameter) and b parameter estimated by fitting the Gompertz growth curve did not show any difference between experimental groups. However, differences related with growth velocity (k parameter of the Gompertz curve) were observed among them, showing that the control group had higher growth velocity than the vitrified-transferred group. In addition, we found that liver weight at 40th week of age exhibits significant differences between the experimental groups. The liver weight was higher in the control males than in the VF males. Although the present results indicate that vitrification and transfer pro-cedures might affect some traits related with growth in rabbits, further research is needed to assess the mechanisms involved in the appearance of these phenotypes and if these phenotypes could be transferred to the future progeny.

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“…In contrast, in the case of vitrified rabbit embryos, we showed how those embryos able to reach late blastocyst stage were also able to implant, but had a higher mortality rate from day 14 compared with fresh non‐cryopreserved embryos, and a reduction in foetal development between days 10 and 14 of gestation (Vicente et al. ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 80%

Direct Comparison of the Effects of Slow Freezing and Vitrification on Late Blastocyst Gene Expression, Development, Implantation and Offspring of Rabbit Morulae

Saenz-de-Juano

Marco‐Jiménez

Viudes-de-Castro

et al. 2014

Reprod Domestic Animals

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This study aimed to assess the effect of different cryopreservation procedures (slow freezing vs vitrification) on the gene expression in pre-implantation embryos and its implication in post-implantation embryo losses in rabbit. For this purpose, rabbit morulae were recovered at Day 3 of development, frozen or vitrified and transferred to recipients. Then, embryos were recovered on Day 3 post-transfer (Day 6 of development) or kept until the end of gestation. Apart from the gene expression analysis at Day 6, we also studied the pre-implantatory and foetal development ability of both cryopreserved embryo types by evaluating late blastocyst development at Day 6, embryo implantation at Day 11 post-transfer (Day 14 of development) and birth rate. We reported that slow freezing and vitrification have similar effects on embryo developmental ability till Day 6, but the distribution of losses changes during implantation and further development. These similarities at Day 6 of development were also reflected in gene expression patterns, and transcriptome analysis showed no differences between frozen and vitrified embryos. Our results confirm that vitrification provides better implantation and birth rates than slow freezing for rabbit embryos. As both the techniques are commonly used in human assisted reproduction, further experiments must be conducted to clarify the causes that may hinder foetal development and their impact on adulthood.

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Rabbit morula vitrification reduces early foetal growth and increases losses throughout gestation

Cited by 26 publications

References 36 publications

Vitrification alters rabbit foetal placenta at transcriptomic and proteomic level

Vitrification alters rabbit foetal placenta at transcriptomic and proteomic level

Embryo vitrification in rabbits: Consequences for progeny growth

Direct Comparison of the Effects of Slow Freezing and Vitrification on Late Blastocyst Gene Expression, Development, Implantation and Offspring of Rabbit Morulae

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