Authors : Shengwei Hu, Wei Ni, Chuangfu Chen, Wujiafu Sai, Wureli Hazi, Zhirui He, Ren Meng and Jixing Guo
Abstract: The present study was carried out to assess and compare the effects of Valproic Acid (VPA) and Trichostatin A (TSA) on in vitro development of sheep Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) embryos. The results showed that treatment of cloned sheep embryos with 4 mM VPA or 50 nM TSA for 24 h after activation could significantly improve blastocyst rate compared to the control (30.7 vs. 23.3 vs. 16.7%, respectively p<0.05). VPA treatment resulted in a significant higher blastocyst rate than that of TSA-treated group (p<0.05). Moreover, VPA treatment significantly increased (p<0.05) total cell number per blastocyst compared with the TSA treatment and control groups (78.8±9.3 vs. 69.6±9.7 vs. 64.1±8.6, respectively). Furthermore, VPA treatment increased expression of the development-related genes OCT4 and SOX2 in SCNT blastocysts. These results demonstrate that VPA may be more potent than TSA in supporting developmental competence of cloned embryos.
Shengwei Hu, Wei Ni, Chuangfu Chen, Wujiafu Sai, Wureli Hazi, Zhirui He, Ren Meng and Jixing Guo, 2012. Comparison Between the Effects of Valproic Acid and Trichostatin A on in vitro Development of Sheep Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer Embryos. Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, 11: 1868-1872.