Abstract

In this article, we studied the effect of cystein in maturation culture on glutathione concentration in oocyte and on embryos development by in vitro fertilization in porcine. 0.6 mM cysteine supplementation on TCM-199 medium has increased the amount of GSH in the oocyte. The GSH level began to increase at the 40th hour after cystein supple metation and attained the highest at the 44th hour (18.32 pmol/oocyte). After 5 days of embryos culture, a total of 1000 oocyte maturation and fertilization was obtained including 583 embryos containing 2 cells, 408 embryos containing 3-4 cells, 264 embryos containing 5-8 cells and 106 morula. In particular, fertilization rate and embryo division was the best in the oocyte maturation of the 44th hour with 200 embryos containing 2 cell (80 %), 161 embryos containing 3-4 cells (64.4 %), 114 embryos containing 5-8 cells (45.6 %) and 62 morula (24.8 %). The results showed that the time of the cysteine supplementation into medium and the time of muturation affected oocyte GSH level. In addition, embryoic development rate was also affected by maturation time and oocyte GSH level.