Royal jelly may improve the metabolism of glucose and redox state of ovine oocytes matured in vitro and embryonic development following in vitro fertilization.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of different concentrations of royal jelly (RJ) on in vitro maturation (IVM), fertilization, cleavage, blastocyst rates, glutathione (GSH) content in ovine oocyte, mRNA abundance of antioxidant enzymes in both oocyte and cumulus, and glucose metabolism-related genes in cumulus cells. In vitro maturation of oocyte was performed in the presence of control (RJ), 2.5 (RJ), 5 (RJ), and 10 (RJ) mg/mL of RJ.