Positive Regulation of Macromolecule Metabolic Process Belongs to the Main Mechanisms Crucial for Porcine Oocytes Maturation

The mammalian oocytes maturation is the compound process that involves morphological and molecular changes. These modifications include storage of macromolecules, which are crucial for proteins biosynthesis during periimplantation stages of embryo development. This study was aimed to investigate the genes expression profile encoding macromolecules important for regulation of proper porcine oocytes maturation.

The porcine oocytes were collected from large ovarian follicles and analyzed both before and after in vitro maturation (IVM). Additionally, to check the developmental competence status, brilliant crezyl blue test (BCB) was performed. The obtained cDNA was used for biotin labeling and fragmentation by AffymetrixGeneChip® WT Terminal Labeling and Hybridization (Affymetrix). The preliminary analysis of the scanned chips was performed using AffymetrixGeneAtlasTM Operating Software. The created CEL files were imported into downstream data analysis software.

In results, we found expression of 419 different genes, 379 genes were down-regulated and 40 genes were up-regulated in relation to the oocyte transcriptome before in vitro procedure. We observed up-regulation of all genes involved in “positive regulation of macromolecule metabolic process” before IVM as compared to transcriptional profile analyzed after IVM.

In conclusion, we suggested that genes encoding proteins involved in macromolecule metabolism are important for achieving of porcine oocytes maturational stage. Moreover, the “activity of macromolecules metabolism” is much more increased in immature oocytes.