Colcemid treatment during oocyte maturation improves preimplantation development of cloned pig embryos by influencing meiotic progression and cytoplasmic maturation.

The objective of this study was to examine the effects of colcemid treatment during oocyte in vitro maturation (IVM) and embryonic development after parthenogenetic activation (PA) and somatic-cell nucleus transfer (SCNT) in pigs. Immature oocytes were treated with colcemid from 0 to 22, 38 to 42, or 0 to 22 hr followed by 38 to 42 hr during IVM (designated as COL0-22, COL38-42, and COL0-22/38-42, respectively). The proportion of oocytes reaching the germinal vesicle (GV)/GV breakdown (GVBD) stage after 22 hr of IVM was higher in COL0-22 (98.4%) than in controls not exposed to colcemid (68.7%). The proportion of metaphase-II (MII) oocytes after 30 hr of IVM was higher in control (79.6%) than in COL0-22 oocytes (61.7%); overall nuclear progression to the MII stage was not influenced by colcemid treatment by the end of the IVM period (93.8, 86.7, 86.8, and 84.8% for control, COL0-22, COL38-42, and COL0-22/38-42, respectively). COL0-22 oocytes showed higher intra-oocyte glutathione content (1.7 vs. 1.0-1.3 pixels/oocyte) and increased blastocyst formation after PA (68.7% vs. 42.5-52.2%) and SCNT (39.4% vs. 16.3-28.6%) than control, COL38-42, and COL0-22/38-42 oocytes. Colcemid treatment for 0-22 and 0-22/38-42 hr of IVM also stimulated the expression of cyclin-dependent kinase 1 (CDK1), proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), and extracellular signal-regulated kinase 2 (ERK2) mRNAs. Our results thus demonstrate that the presence of colcemid during the early stage of IVM stimulates preimplantation development of PA and SCNT porcine embryos by improving the cytoplasmic microenvironment.