Forskolin impacts on maturation and lipid content of swine oocytes

Abstract

In vitro production of swine embryos poses a few challenges that make it less efficient when compared to other domestic species. This is due to a series of aspects, such as insufficient cytoplasmic development of oocytes, asynchronous cytoplasm and nucleus maturation, and large amounts of intracytoplasmic lipid droplets. The present study evaluated the effects of forskolin addition during the last 22 hours of in vitro maturation, measured through lipid droplet content and maturation synchronicity rates. The maturation rates (p > 0.05) were similar in both intervention and control groups. There was also no difference (p > 0.05) in lipid content between the groups. Therefore, in this study, forskolin addition failed to improve both nuclear maturation rates and lipid content of swine oocytes.