Studies on Bisection of Bovine Embryos and Embryo Tranfer

소 우정란의 Bisection과 이식에 관한 연구

These experiments were carried out to develop the practical technique for the production of identical twins in cattle. Morula and blastocyst stage embryos collected from superovulated donors were bisected into halves by micromanipulation. The resulting demi-embryos were transferred to the uterine horn ipsilateral to the corpus luteum of synchronous recipients. The viability of demi-embryos after splitting was also evaluated by culturing demi-embryos with and without a zona-pellucida. The results obtained in these experiments were summarized as follows : 1. Of total 132 embryos collected by superovulation from 29 donors, 37 embryos were morular and 30 at blastocyst stages. 2. Total 111 demi-embryos were produced from 67 embryos by bisection and 98% of those were normal in morphology. 3. The viability of the demi-embryos cultured with zona-pellucida ranged from 70 to 76.5% and that of the demi-embryos without from 53.8 to 69.2%. 4. The viability of demi-embryos obtained from morula was 63.6% and that of demi-embryos from blastocyst was 73.3%, respectively. 5. 35 demi-embryos were transferred to 21 recipients, 7 of which were confirmed to be pregnant by rectal palpation at 55∼60 days after embryo transfer. One of them produced a calf and 6 are still on pregnancy.