Fertilization and early embryology: Established cell lines and their conditioned media support bovine embryo development during in-vitro culture

These experiments were conducted to evaluate the ability ofdifferent somatic–cell monolayers or conditioned mediumfrom somatic cells for supporting bovine embryo developmentin vitro. In the first experiment, bovine embryos (2- to 4-cells)were allocated randomly to a control (medium 199 with 10% fetalbovine serum and antibiotics) group or co-cultured with bovineoviduct epithelial (BOEC), buffalo rat liver (BRL), Madin Darbybovine kidney (MDBK) or African green monkey kidney (Vero) cells.In the second experiment, bovine embryos (1-cell) were allocatedrandomly to the following groups: control medium or conditionedmedium from BOEC, BRL, MDBK and Vero monolayers. In both experiments,development to the blastocyst stage was assessed after 8 daysof incubation at 39°C and 5% CO₂ In Experiment 1, co-cultureimproved development to the blastocyst stage compared with controlmedium alone, and the highest development was observed afterco–culture with BOEC. In Experiment 2, conditioned mediumenhanced development to morulae and blastocysts compared withthe control medium; however, no differences were detected amongdifferent cell supports. These results indicate that both co-cultureand conditioned medium from different cell monolayers supporteddevelopment to the blastocyst stage at a higher efficiency thancontrol medium alone.