Abstract
Pharmacological elevation of cyclic AMP (cAMP) of cultured cumulus-oocyte complexes (COC) before or coincident with initiation of maturation has been reported to improve outcomes for various systems for in vitro production of embryos. Here it was hypothesized that artificial elevation of cAMP in the oocyte for a 2-h period of prematuration would improve developmental competence of matured oocytes and result in increased blastocyst yield and altered expression of genes important for embryonic differentiation. Treated COC were cultured for 2 h with dibutyryl cAMP (dbcAMP), a membrane-permeable form of cAMP, and 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine (IBMX), which inhibits phosphodiesterases that convert cAMP to ATP. Subsequently, oocytes were matured and fertilized and the resultant embryos cultured for 7.5 d. There was no effect of treatment on the percent of oocytes or cleaved embryos becoming blastocysts or on transcript abundance of EOMES, GATA4, NANOG, SOX2, or SOX17 in the blastocyst. Results do not support the use of pharmacological enhancers of cAMP concentrations in the oocyte for improving the blastocyst yield following in vitro oocyte maturation, fertilization, and embryo culture.